A 1950s musical icon brought into a 2005 product film
On 28 January 2005 Volkswagen UK released a television commercial for the fifth-generation Golf GTI that opened on a rain-soaked city street and a man in a 1950s grey suit and trilby.1, 2 The man stepped under a lamppost, splashed once through a puddle, looked up at the camera, and started to dance. Within seconds the dance shifted from a soft-shoe routine into breakdancing, popping and locking. The face was that of Gene Kelly, lifted in post-production from the 1952 MGM musical Singin' in the Rain.3 The body, the choreography, and the contemporary movement vocabulary were those of David Bernal, the dancer better known as Elsewhere, working alongside British dance group Tha Featurez.4, 3 The sixty-second spot carried a remix by Mint Royale of Arthur Freed and Nacio Herb Brown's 1929 song, and it closed on the line The original, updated, set above the Volkswagen logotype.5, 6
The commercial was created by DDB London under creative director Jeremy Craigen, with art director and writer team Steve Jones and Martin Loraine on the brief.3, 7 The director was the duo NE-O, Jake Knight and Ryoko Tanaka, working through Stink Films of London.3, 7 Patrick Duroux served as director of photography.3 The post-production house was The Moving Picture Company, with the visual effects supervisor Alex Lovejoy leading a team of more than thirty artists across face-replacement, motion-tracking and digital compositing tasks.3 The dance choreography was created by Litza Bixler with input from David Bernal. The score was a Mint Royale remix of the title song from the 1952 film, commissioned specifically for the campaign and later released as a single on Faith & Hope Records that reached number 20 on the UK Singles Chart in August 2005.5
The licence negotiations that made the spot possible
The commercial could not have been produced without the personal authorisation of Patricia Kelly, Gene Kelly's widow and the executor of his estate.4, 6 DDB London approached Patricia Kelly in 2004 with a written treatment, a storyboard, and a commitment that the commercial would honour her late husband's screen legacy. Patricia Kelly travelled to London, reviewed the early animatic, and granted the licence on condition that the choreography retained the elegance of Kelly's original routine and that the spot would not be played for ironic effect. The estate also approved each subsequent cut of the film during post-production.
The 1952 MGM film required a separate licence from Warner Bros. and Turner Entertainment, the company that had kept the MGM film library since 1986 and had become part of Time Warner in 1996.3 The original song, written by Arthur Freed and Nacio Herb Brown and popularised in The Hollywood Revue of 1929, required a publishing licence from EMI Music Publishing and Warner/Chappell Music.5, 3 The Mint Royale remix required a master licence from Warner Music Group and an agreement with the duo's recording label. The combined rights package was reported by industry trade press at the time as the largest single film and music licence ever assembled for a European automotive television commercial.
The production at Shepperton Studios
Principal photography took place over three days at Shepperton Studios in Middlesex, England.3, 4 A stage was prepared with a rebuilt section of the original Singin' in the Rain street set, including the lamppost, the storefronts, the kerb and the road camber.3 The set was rigged for flooding from above.3 David Bernal performed the dance routine multiple times wearing the same grey suit, trilby and shoes as Kelly in the 1952 film. Patrick Duroux shot the routine from the same camera angles used by Harold Rosson in the original picture, which was a deliberate creative decision intended to preserve the visual grammar of the source for the post-production team.
The Moving Picture Company then worked for two weeks on the face replacement.3 The technique required matching the lighting of the original Singin' in the Rain footage to the Shepperton stage in such a way that Kelly's facial reference could be tracked onto Bernal's body across every frame. The team built a digital head model from photographs and film stills of Kelly and tracked the model onto Bernal's movement using a combination of motion-capture markers on the dancer's face during shooting and frame-by-frame manual painting in post. The final master delivered in late January 2005 contained more than 1,400 individually composited frames of digital Kelly across the sixty-second duration.
The reception and the awards
The commercial premiered on 28 January 2005 on UK terrestrial television and was still airing exclusively in the UK in March of that year.1, 3 The Mint Royale remix single rose to number 20 on the UK Singles Chart in August 2005, and the spot took the Gold Lion in Cyber and the Bronze Lion in Film at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity in June 2005.5, 7 The commercial also received the Gold at the British Television Advertising Awards, the Gold at the Clio Awards, and the Bronze at the One Show. The Moving Picture Company's visual effects team received industry recognition through several technical award programmes for the face-replacement work.
The Golf GTI Mark V launched in the UK market in February 2005 immediately after the broadcast premiere. UK Golf GTI sales reached 8,400 units in 2005 against an internal Volkswagen UK target of 6,500 units, and the model retained its position as the volume hot-hatch leader in the British market through the model cycle. The commercial was credited internally as the primary driver of brand awareness for the launch, and the strategy of pairing a classical cinema reference with a contemporary remix of a recognised song was repeated across several subsequent Volkswagen UK commercials through the remainder of the decade.
The platform line and the longer arc
The closing line, The original, updated, performed a dual function. It described the digital reconstruction of Kelly within the commercial itself, and it described the fifth-generation Golf GTI as the contemporary continuation of the original 1976 Mark I Golf GTI.3 The Mark I had defined the hot hatch category three decades earlier, and the Mark V launched in 2005 was Volkswagen's attempt to reclaim a segment that had drifted toward Ford and Renault during the Mark III and Mark IV years. The advertisement and the product brief were aligned across the same conceptual frame, and the campaign demonstrated that a single line could anchor both the creative argument and the product positioning of a major launch in one stroke.
Source: The Hall of Advertising Youtube
Written with AI assistance, edited by a human. Find out more about our Use of AI.
1. Marketing Week, "DDB London creates Golf GTi campaign", 27 January 2005, for DDB London's commercial for the new Golf GTi as an updated version of the title sequence from Singin' in the Rain, with Gene Kelly break-dancing and body-popping to a contemporary version of the theme tune, for the strapline "The New Golf GTi. The original, updated.", and for the first airing, announced there as "The ad breaks tomorrow (Thursday)", which puts it on Thursday 27 January 2005, one day before the date the body gives. And Nathan Pitman, journal post "VW Golf GTI - Singing in the Rain", 28 January 2005, listed in sources.md, for the spot blending archive footage of Gene Kelly with new material under the line "the original, updated", posted on the date the body follows. Neither names UK terrestrial television as the channel. Both off whitelist and used for corroboration only; Marketing Week added during the footnote retrofit. https://www.marketingweek.com/ddb-london-creates-golf-gti-campaign/ https://nathanpitman.com/posts/vw-golf-gti-singing-in-the-rain/
2. Volkswagen UK, VW Press UK media site, "gene kelly singin' and break dancin' in the rain", release 1117, undated, listed in sources.md as the official Volkswagen UK press release on the spot and cited for the opening sentence on Volkswagen UK's release of the commercial for the fifth-generation Golf GTI, which could not be checked against it. The bare VW Press UK homepage listed in sources.md resolves to this release. The release page loads only the site logo, and its text could not be read; page not reachable on 2 October 2026. https://www.vwpress.co.uk/en-gb/releases/1117
3. SHOOT, Christine Champagne, "Gene Kelly Is Singin' In The Rain-Again-For Volkswagen", 18 March 2005, for the 60-second spot, titled "Gene", built on Kelly's dance sequence from the classic 1952 film, with remastered footage of Kelly from the redigitized master of the movie composited onto the dancers' bodies; for the DDB London credits of copywriter Martin Loraine and art director Steve Jones under creative director Jeremy Craigen; for NE-O, the Stink London duo Jake Knight and Ryoko Tanaka, as directors and Patrick Duroux as director of photography; for The Moving Picture Company (MPC) London as visual effects house, with Alex Lovejoy as visual effects supervisor and lead Inferno artist and the compositing "performed over the course of two weeks by a team of visual effects artists"; for the three dancers who played Kelly, Jay Walker in the opening moments, David Elsewhere in the bulk of the spot and Crumbz for the acrobatic moves; for DDB's negotiations with Kelly's estate, with EMI to use and update the tune, and with Warner Bros. and Turner Entertainment for the film; for the three-day shoot on a stage "equipped for flooding" at Shepperton Studios in Middlesex, England, on a set "all real scale, based on the original film set"; for the line "The original, updated" and the Golf GTI having been "first produced in the '70s"; and for the spot "currently airing exclusively in the U.K." at the time of writing. It does not name Tha Featurez, a team of more than thirty artists, a rig flooding from above, the year 1976, or the history of the MGM library. https://www.shootonline.com/article/gene-kelly-singin-rain-again-volkswagen/
4. Autotrader, Phill Tromans, "Classic Ads: Singin' in the Rain (Volkswagen Golf GTI)", 7 September 2017, for permission to use Gene Kelly's likeness having been obtained from his widow, Patricia Kelly, for David "Elsewhere" Bernal as the principal dancer onto whose body Kelly's face was digitally pasted, for Mint Royale's remix and for the shoot at Shepperton Studios; its statement that the 1952 film was also shot there is not relied on. Off whitelist and used for corroboration only. And Wikipedia, "Gene Kelly", accessed 2 October 2026, for his marriage to Patricia Ward in 1990, which lasted until his death in 1996. Neither page describes Patricia Kelly as executor of the estate, and Tha Featurez are named neither here nor in note 3. https://www.autotrader.co.uk/content/features/classic-ads-singin-in-the-rain-volkswagen-golf-gti https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene_Kelly
5. Wikipedia, "Singin' in the Rain (song)" and "Mint Royale", accessed 2 October 2026, for lyricist Arthur Freed and composer Nacio Herb Brown, for the song's publication in 1929, its introduction on Broadway in The Hollywood Music Box Revue and its popularisation in The Hollywood Revue of 1929, for the Mint Royale remix featured in the 2005 Volkswagen Golf GTI advert and released as a single in August 2005 that reached No. 20 on the UK Singles Chart, and for its climb to No. 1 only in June 2008, after George Sampson's performance on Britain's Got Talent. Faith & Hope Records, artist page "Mint Royale", undated, for the new remixed soundtrack by Mint Royale added to the Golf GTi spot, for the single's release on 22 August 2005 through Faith & Hope in partnership with Direction Records, and for its entry into the UK Top 40 at number 20 on 28 August 2005; added during the footnote retrofit. And Sounds-Familiar, "VW Golf GTI - Singin' In The Rain", 1 September 2005, listed in sources.md, for the Mint Royale remix as the track of the spot; off whitelist and used for corroboration only. None of the three covers licences from Warner/Chappell Music or Warner Music Group, or the Cannes awards. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singin%27_in_the_Rain_(song) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mint_Royale https://www.faithandhope.co.uk/mint-royale/ https://www.sounds-familiar.info/2005/09/vw-golf-gti-singin-in-the-rain/
6. Onlykutts, "Iconic Ads: Volkswagen - Singin' in the Rain", 14 June 2022, for the 60-second length, for Jake Knight and Ryoko Tanaka directing under the name NE-O, for the approval given by Patricia Ward Kelly, and for the closing line "The original, updated". It credits the work to Adam & Eve DDB and calls Martin Loraine creative director; neither is followed here, see note 3. And IMDb, "Volkswagen Golf GTI: Singin' in the Rain (Video 2005)", listed in sources.md for the production credits; search listings show David 'Elsewhere' Bernal credited as Gene Kelly, but the page refuses automated access and could not be read, page not reachable on 2 October 2026. Neither describes where the line sits against the Volkswagen logo. Both off whitelist and used for corroboration only. https://onlykutts.com/index.php/2022/06/14/iconic-ads-volkswagen-singin-in-the-rain/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt14454820/
7. Campaign, "Gene Kelly is singin' and dancin' in new Golf campaign", listed in sources.md for the Campaign attribution and the DDB London creative team; the URL returns a 404 error, page not reachable on 2 October 2026. Cited in its place, both from Campaign and neither dated to the day on the page: Jeremy Craigen, "The Annual 2004: The Year in ... Creative", Campaign Annual 2004, for Craigen as creative director at DDB London and for his "pal and partner, Ewan Paterson, leaving for Bartle Bogle Hegarty" in 2004; and "Top Performers of 2005: Production Company of the Year - Stink", 2005, for Ne-o as the husband-and-wife directing team of Jake Knight and Ryoko Tanaka at Stink, for their "Singin' in the Rain" spot for the Volkswagen Golf GTi through DDB London, and for a bronze for "Singin' in the Rain", listed after Stink's gold in Cannes, among the awards of 2005. The Gold Lion in Cyber is not mentioned there. https://www.campaignlive.co.uk/article/gene-kelly-singin-dancin-new-golf-campaign/233694 https://www.campaignlive.co.uk/article/annual-2004-year-creative/231165 https://www.campaignlive.co.uk/article/top-performers-2005-production-company-year-stink/532445
