When Eugene Romanovsky was looking to sell his 1996 Suzuki Vitara, he didn’t merely stick a sign in the window, place a used-car classified ad or post a listing online.
No, this Israeli visual-effects artist from Rishon LeZion produced a professional two-minute video showing his “smart, trendy, sexy” vehicle nimbly navigating the jungle, tundra, ocean and outer space – using scenes from movies such as Jurassic Park and Mad Max: Fury Road – set to the epic cinematic soundtrack “Legends.”
He makes it clear that these scenes are fanciful but they get the message across: This is one special SUV.
“It needs your love. And maybe some paint,” the clip concludes.
Romanovsky posted the video on YouTube on April 12. As of May 10, the epic advertisement had gotten 3,125,427 views.
Romanovsky’s daytime job is creative director/VFX supervisor/head of motion for the graphics department at Gravity, a creative, design, effects and animation group in Tel Aviv.
He worked on the BuyMyVitara video during his free time over the course of about three weeks, more as a fun experiment in creativity than a serious sales pitch.
Romanovsky has garnered headlines including “Visual effects expert sells the hell out of old Suzuki” (TheNextWeb) and “Visual Effects Artist Creates Epic Video To Sell His Old Car, And Now 2 Million People Want To Buy It” (BoredPanda).
It’s not quite accurate that millions wanted to buy the vehicle, but Romanovsky tells ISRAEL21c that he lost count of how many inquiries he got, even from faraway places such as Argentina and the United States.
The car did find a buyer, right here in Israel.
“The funny thing is, the person who bought it didn’t see the movie. He saw the car on the street,” Romanovsky says.