Mr. Robinson’s Driving School

Actor Craig Robinson is known for his role on The Office and now he will be starring alongside the new Volvo C30 hatchback with quality Volvo bumpers in an online comedy series that was developed and produced by Euro RSCG 4D; New York; MSN; Reveille Productions, Los Angeles; and Drama 3-4, Los Angeles. The comedy series entitled Mr. Robinson’s Driving School may be viewed over a period of 14 weeks through November 30 at www.drivingschool.msn.com.

The series is directed by Brice Beckham and David Fickas of Drama 3-4. The comedy series is about Mr. Robinson who owns and manages a small driving school, the story starts when Mr. Robinson was offered an opportunity to take over a much larger driving franchise as its owner retires provided that he can defeat his archrival “Swervin” Merv Lehrman in a series of challenges which are chronicled in the series.

To give himself a competitive edge Mr. Robinson bought a V30 which he names Sheila. Among the episodes to be aired includes the Freeway Challenge, Salesmanship Challenge, Parallel Parking Challenge, and the Change a Tire Challenge.

And since the Volvo C30 hatchback is designed to be driven by younger drivers than the traditional Volvo Car, the Swedish automaker wanted to create a pleasing experience for the consumer. According to Anna Papadopoulos, interactive media director at Euro RSCG 4D, "We knew digital would be a key player over other media because that's where the target was. Since we had a long-standing partnership with Microsoft and the company had just entered into an exclusive partnership with Reveille (producers of Ugly Betty and The Office), we knew this was an opportunity we wanted to explore. It started to all come together from there."

Papadopoulos further added that Volvo has a long-term commitment to emerging media platforms, including the first “custom solution” branded content package ever to run in MSN. It was called the Digital Garage and was shown on MSN Autos in the year 2001.

Papadopoulos explained: "However, this has been by far the most unique custom-solution program we have done with MSN and the first to fully integrate product. Unlike television, Volvo and Euro RSCG 4D were able to be part of the show's development from inception—this has definitely been a soup-to-nuts experience. This wasn't amateur hour. With all their recent success, Reveille and Craig Robinson provided an accomplished, recognized name to the program. Viewers had a context in which to view the program and understanding of the caliber of humor and professionalism they could expect."

She also said that millions of people have already visited the site and has spent time watching the series, sending messages to their friends, taking virtual driving lesson from Mr. Robinson aspiring to win the new C30. Likewise, the integrated placements on MSN’s homepage drive traffic to the site.

The production team has made use of digital technology particularly the Panasonic HVX which uses P2 cards. Jared Tobman, one of the executive producers was awed by the digital technology utilized for the online comedy series that he said, "These guys were sliding the P2 cards out of the cameras straight into Macs that were sitting on set and they were starting to cut right away. The tremendous amount of efficiency that digital technology affords also fits with the web because even though it's nice to have some great sponsorship of the program, ultimately you are still not getting anywhere close to what episodic television usually pays for stuff on the air."

In addition, it was also more cost effective for the team to shoot the driving scenes for multiple episodes in one afternoon on a green stage rather than do it the conventional more movie style approach.

Director Fickas also stressed that the shooting on the green screen stage has also helped to further enhance the actors’ performances. He said as quoted by Shoot on Line: "One of the things we really wanted to do was take advantage of the green screen and be able to control the comedy a little bit more by shooting it on a sound stage. By letting the green screen and the effects take care of our car stuff, Craig could improvise more and we could be a little bit looser than if we had to deal with traffic, blocking off streets and car rigs. There's just another element to that."

He also mentioned that he and Beckham went to see Robinson’s live comedy show before they met him just to get an idea on the type of comedy he does outside of The Office. And he was surprised to see how musically driven Robinson was making it easier for him and Brice to write stuffs that was specific for him.

Everybody agrees that Craig has this warm and lovable sympathetic personality---which is exactly what Volvo was looking for in a star who would co-star with its car.

Beckham also confessed that they did find a hard time to look for the balance between writing a compelling narrative arc and something that is more appropriate for the internet. He said, I think the biggest challenge specific to the web is creating short episodic content—that as MSN would say, people like to snack on—that works as a standalone but also tells a story over the course of 16 episodes. We had to satisfy people who are looking for one snack but also satisfy people who want to come back and keep eating."

And for Volvo it was satisfied with the results and was rewarding everyone in the production. Fickas said, "This experience has been contrary to most creative people's fears of partnering with a brand and having your creative content sponsored. They gave us the creative freedom to create a world and they provided us with an essential character in that world and then let us run with that. It's been a dream partnership as far as we are concerned. It's not at all the relationship that people fear when they think that an advertiser is going to get involved with their project and take it over."