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SOLA Sparkling Water · 45-second brand film

Break the Ice.

A nature thriller for twenty seconds. A soft-drink ad for the rest. Shot entirely with AI. Directed entirely by hand.

45s · 16:9Original spec brandConcept → script → direction → edit: Everflo

The idea

One title, three meanings.

The title is the script. Every scene in the film exists to pay off one of its three readings.

Polar bear smashing an ice ridge apart

1Break the ice, literally

A polar bear smashes a frozen ridge apart with one blow.

SOLA can held in a polar bear paw, frost still on the label

2The product device

The prize inside: a can of SOLA, served ice-cold by nature itself.

The bear and the fisherman sitting together, each drinking a SOLA

3The icebreaker

Two strangers who got off on the wrong foot, sharing a drink.

The structure

Sold as a thriller. Paid off as a joke.

Forty-five seconds built on one misdirection: the audience is shown a predator. They’re actually watching a customer.

THE REVEAL
Fisherman alone on a frozen lake, overcast
01A quiet catch on a frozen lake.
A polar bear emerging from the fog
02Something in the fog.
The bear leaping over the fallen fisherman
03The charge — straight over him.
A SOLA can revealed among shattered ice between the bear's paws
04The prize was never him.
The bear drinking the SOLA while the stunned fisherman watches
05Cracked open, ice-cold.
Bear and fisherman side by side, sharing a drink
06Two strangers, one round.
Act I — The LieEverything a horror film would do: fog, silence, a charge.
Act II — The TurnOne smash flips the genre.
Act III — The TruthHe just wanted a cold one.

The product stays invisible until second 20. No logo, no can, no brand color while the lie holds — restraint most AI video never attempts, and the reason the reveal lands.

The craft

AI is the camera. Direction is the product.

Anyone can generate a bear. Keeping the same bear, the same man and the same geography across twelve shots — that’s direction.

Cast like a real shoot

Four actors auditioned for the fisherman. The bear got a full character sheet — down to a notch scar on his left ear. One performer per role, held consistent through every shot in the film.

Fisherman character sheet: turnaround and expressions
The fisherman — cast A of 4
Polar bear character sheet with identifying notch-scarred left ear
The bear — scar, coat, gait

Light performs the story

Overcast dread while the lie holds. The sun breaks exactly when the truth does. The weather is a character with an arc — planned in the script, not found in the render.

Act one: flat overcast light on the frozen lake
Act I — overcast
Act three: golden sunlight as bear and man sit together
Act III — the sun breaks

Written rules, every shot

Scale anchors, locked screen direction, one action per cut, documentary light only. A written rulebook governs every generation — the discipline that makes twelve AI shots feel like one film.

Low ice-level frame of the can sliding to the fisherman's boot, annotated with directing rules Camera locked at can height One vector: paw → boot, never reversed Scale anchor: can = half a paw-width

Beyond the film.

Break the Ice is the story lane. The rest of the SOLA system is product craft — CGI films and a social kit, one world throughout.

Product CGI
Hero film · 12s
Hyper-motion spot · 15s
The social kit
SOLA flavour lineup: three cans with fruit and splashes on teal
Frozen Fresh: yuzu + ginger can inside a block of ice Frozen Fresh: blood orange + rosemary can inside a block of ice Frozen Fresh: cucumber + lime can inside a block of ice
Vertical hero key art: SOLA can in a lifebuoy on a glacial lake
Break the Chill static: can punching through ice Glacial Tetris static: stacked ice blocks with cans Ice vending machine static Colour-on-snow static: blood orange can in snow

Flavour lineup · the Frozen Fresh trilogy · hero key art · social one-offs — one world, every format.

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