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.

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.

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

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.

Free resource

Steal the shotlist.

The complete director's document behind this film — free to study. See exactly how a 45-second AI spot gets written, ruled and shot.

The Break the Ice director's shotlist

Every scene prompt, word for word — the exact text behind every shot
The production rulebook: scale anchors, screen direction, realism language
What every failed take taught us — and how each fix worked

You're in. Download the director's shotlist (PDF) — a copy of the link is on its way to your inbox too.

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