Sony recreated an image of the Sanfermin Running of the Bulls from the summer fiestas of 2012 to publicize its new camera endowed with a projector, in Indonesia. Probably the Sony DCR-PJ5 video camera does not mean much to you, but the possibility of recording film and being able to project it at the very same time was a real advertising challenge for the Y&R creative publicity agency from Jakarta.
The team was directed by Kevin Le and the artistic task was in the hands of Supriatin Kurniasari who decided that the Sanfermin Running of the Bulls had everything that they needed for their publicity campaign. They knew that the Pamplona Running of the Bulls was an internationally known spectacle and just the right kind of outlet to demonstrate the ease of use of the new Sony camera. We might add that the task in this case was not to make a video or shoot a film, but rather to make a publicity advertisement aimed at press and magazine outlets and which had to succeed in conveying its message at first glance.
Y&R developed their idea using the Sanfermin Running of the Bulls event where the user of the Sony camera is filming the bullrun as the cameraman is actually taking part in the actual running of the bulls and, at the same time, projects a live image on a wall. The bull stares at the image projected on the wall rather than at the live runners, thanks to the camera projection. The person responsible for expressing this idea was the illustrator Rahmat Handoko. This drawer is well-known in Indonesia for his work in comics. The publicity agency liked his work and the advert appeared in the press media in Indonesia, China and Japan. Handoko has a high profile in the world of comics and has even worked with Marvel publications in a special edition of Iron Man, which was published under the title “No End In Sight: Part 2 of 3”..
In his work for the Sony advert the illustrator displayed a street that could well be a Pamplona Street or not, at first glance. The water potholes do not look like those normally found in European cities but two details on two premises along the Street make it very clear that we are in Pamplona. We can clearly read behind the bull the name on one of the premises – Cervecería Bávaros, which is an actual premises in Pamplona, although, curiously enough, it is not located on the stretch of the Running of the Bulls. And in the rear part of the image we can also read the name – La Mallorquina, – which indeed is the name of an actual cake shop in the town of Estella, close to Pamplona.
Obviously, this whole thing is a recreation and, of course, the by-laws for the bullrunning in Pamplona forbid by law any action such as this with a runner carrying a camera as he participates in the bullrun. However, it is true that on certain specific occasions, permission has been given to take a camera onto the course of the bullrun. One such occasion was the year of this announcement, that is to say, during Sanfermin 2012, when permission was granted to some runners to use a camera so as to obtain some 3D images for the Burn advertisement. In this promotional video the system used can easily be seen.
