The dramatic two new spots for the Swedish Armed Forces were directed by Jorgen Lööf at Atmosfär for DDB Stockholm. The post production was done at Stopp. The campaign aims to raise awareness of the changes being made to the Swedish Army due to the shifting focus from national to International operations.

The first commercial entitled “Small World” is a conscience awakening spot that shows a couple lying in their bed in Sweden awoken by the sounds of war. Parallel to this are scenes of war with all the horrors that it entails. The strapline says “The World is getting smaller. Learn more about the New Swedish Armed Forces”. The second spot entitled “Africa” shows a truck full of people navigating a street somewhere in Africa, which is full of arms dealers and gun toting men looking menacingly at them. The tension mounts until the truck passes through a checkpoint manned by Swedish army soldiers and the scene cuts to the people from the truck voting in a hut. The strapline says “A changed World demands a new Swedish armed forces. A new kind of soldier.”

The spots were shot over four days on location in Cape Town, South Africa. All casting was done in South Africa and real Swedish army soldiers were used. The commercials were shot on film and then transferred to HD by Stopp. Before embarking on the shoot, director Lööf did a lot of research to re-create the authentic scenes. He wanted to produce a look that was more like a documentary than feature film. Stopp’s Linus Eriksson Berggren did the on-line, working closely with Lööf to produce the look and feel he wanted by creating the atmospheric grading, cleaning up the shots and doing the seamless compositing. Some of the scenes required explosions which Eriksson Berggren created by shaking the picture and he added smoke to produce the gunfire. Stopp’s 3D animator Arvid built the helicopter in 3D, based on Ridley Scott’s feature film Black Hawn Down.