The Razor Report: The making of "Max has landed" for Atlantic Lottery and Lotto Max

Or: how we made two giant 8' blue lottery balls crush some cars.

About a year ago Lotto Max was launched in Canada. Razor Creative was fortunate to be asked to help play a part. The Lottery wanted something in this region to create some buzz and excitement on launch day.

Our idea was to create the illusion that a giant Lottery Ball had fallen out of the sky and crushed the vehicle of an unsuspecting person in both Halifax and Moncton. Many of you may have seen seen the displays (you couldn't miss them).

What you may not know is the story behind the project. Shortly after the event, we started to create a video that told the behind the scenes of how it all came together. We didn't really have a script so Rich and I just sat one afternoon and started talking, and this is where we ended up. It's been a busy year, so we just got around to finishing it.

Thanks to Dan, Jean-Marc and the team at Botsford Productions for all their help with the project and video.

Here's some more behind the scenes details on how it all came together.

When we were awarded the project and had creative approval, we only has about 10 business days to execute. So we needed a plan - and a partner. Working with Hansen Signs of Moncton we figured out a way forward.

1. Weld a steel frame together
2. Cover it with shrink wrap
3. Spray with foam insulation
4. Scape and sand to get a perfect ball shape
5. Prime and paint
6. Apply branding decals
7. Get vehicles and crush their roof
8. Install and secure the balls
9. Industrial shrink wrap car and ball together
10. Deliver

Here's the directions we shared with our supplier - Hansen Signs on how we thought the balls should be built.

We needed a couple of suitable vehicles. We looked on Kijji and found a couple of beauties being sold "for parts":

A nice Nissan Sentra:

Canada's best selling Mini Van - the Dodge Caravan

The two wire frames

One frame covered in plastic:

Close-up of the one of the balls in production

In the shop - getting ready for foam

Smoothing out some rough parts

Sanded - with the some of the dips filled in with crack filler

Sanding down the ball

Having a coat of paint applied

Max decal being applied

One of the finished balls

In the shop and ready to go

We even did up custom license plates for each vehicle (the spelling mistakes are on purpose as these are spoof plates)

The Hansen Boom truck about to inflict damage

Operating the controls

Doing some damage

Smashing the roof

Getting the van ready

I must say how impressed I was with how well built the van was. It took considerable effort to crush down the roof. We own a much newer Caravan and I know I feel safer driving it knowing how solidly constructed they are.

Feeling like the King of the world

Rich trying to drive the car

We used an overhead crane to lower the balls into place.

Getting the car for Halifax up onto the trailer.

Strapping the ball into place - we had to make sure it would stay and not roll away.

Getting close to being ready

We brought in a campany to shrink wrap the car and ball for the trip to halifax. These are the guys who wrap boats for shipment. When they were first contacted about the job, they thought we were joking.