If you’ve seen that Emirates ad with the flight attendant standing on top of Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest building, while a Dubai A380 appears right behind her, crossing the sky… you’ve probably wondered how the hell they did it.
And did it again, because a year after the original ad that was shot to advertise the resumption of Emirates’ flights, they’ve made another, advertising the Dubai Expo, the world exposition postponed from 2020.
Turns out that behind the curtain was a lot of planning, some tricky camera angles, extended computer simulations to set everything up right, and eleven fly-bys by the plane, which never came closer to the model on the spike than 800 meters (about a half mile), flying at less than a third of its normal speed.
Oh, but you’re not all that interested in flying a plane past a building, are you? But you’re really curious about the woman. And no, it’s not shot in a studio, and it’s not CGI. That’s a British stuntwoman, Nicole Smith-Ludvik, actually standing on top of (and tethered to) the building.
I “like” it, wow, but hate it, too. I know I’m not the only one.
Just watching the prep video gave me ‘jelly legs.’
Yep, that’s the one. I still vividly remember the first time I had that feeling, age 6 or 7.