The Brief
As part of Jack Daniel’s launch of their Honey Flavoured Whisky, the client approached our team with a unique idea to support the debut of a unique new flavour. We were asked to create an ice sculpture of their new Jack Daniels Honey bottle on camera, showcasing all the different tools and methods of ice sculpting whilst dressed as Jack Daniels bee keepers.
How we approached the design
As with any project, the first step is to discuss the details with the client which is how after a few back and forth discussions and a visit to our studio the client decided that our studio fitted the brief for the backdrop of the advert.
It was decided early on in the process that our sculpting team would create the finished bottle ahead of time to ensure the ice could be sculpted to perfection.
Our experienced team have no trouble when it comes to carving out the shape of an ice sculpture, but it is the details that require a more intricate approach. In order to create the infamous Jack Daniels logo on the front of the bottle we used our CNC machine which meticulously etched the logo with a tiny 1mm routing bit for precision. The lettering was then wet and frozen solid so that it would create a frosted effect that would stand out against the clear ice bottle and not melt away too quickly.
For these projects our sculpting team uses a wide variety of tools starting with a chainsaw to roughly cut the block to size. This process looked particularly impressive when filmed as it demonstrates the initial steps in ice sculpture creation; showing the aggressive cuts that are required to create something so intricately detailed and fragile.
We also use ice picks which are used to mark out cut lines as seen in the video alongside chisels to chamfer edges and shape the ice. Hot plates and hot metal stamps are then used to gently polish and create grooves that give them finished ice sculpture’s exterior that honed and perfected appearance.
Overall, both ourselves and the client were extremely happy with the finished result. Not only did the finished Jack Daniels bottle look as true to life as possible, the shoot really went off without a hitch. We got through our shot list in no time which always makes for a very happy crew!
If you’d like to see the finished result and the Jack Daniels Honey video launch, you can watch the process here!
Challenges and how we overcame them
It takes a large amount of time, precision and most importantly, tea breaks from the cold to complete a project such as this which meant it wouldn’t be practical to create the bottle ice sculpture from start to finish on camera. Projects such as these can take days, even weeks to complete and we would never want to rush the process and risk the quality of the finished sculpture.
Therefore in order to overcome this issue we decided with the client that the final ice sculpture would not be created on camera. Our teams worked on the Jack Daniels Honey bottle ahead of time and during this process took note of the sculpting methods that we believed would appear most striking on camera. We then took shots of these methods and sent them across to the client so that they could decide what would look best in their launch video.
Overall, this was the most effective way of working with the client to ensure that our team had the time they needed to achieve the best result whilst creating the ideal setting for the client the capture the shots they were looking for.