Willie Wonka eat your heart out !

Commercials have been shot for two world renowned brands of chocolate in Malta this week using two of Europe’s finest directors in the field.

The first shoot, which took place over three days and used seven locations including many in Rabat, was for Baci. They will use the television advert for their Christmas campaign.

The second was for Perugina, who will launch a new upmarket brand of chocolates also aimed at the Christmas period when chocolate sales tend to soar.

Perugina and Baci are owned by Nestlé.

French food commercial director Daniel Fauchon together with fellow countryman, director of photography Nicholas Massart, have pulled out all the stops to create the Perugina advert that should make mouths water across Italy.

The director, who has already been to Malta twice, said he enjoyed coming back and loved the island, especially because he is an avid diver and looked forward to going on a night dive.

He is a heavy-weight in the world of TV commercials and has done many well known adverts for food companies across the world.

The Perugina advert involved a mock chocolate bar slowly sinking into a two metre by one metre shallow bath of chocolate. However, that was all that could be seen as one would have to wait for the final cut and graphics to be added to see the full effect.

The advert for Baci chocolate saw Italian director Michele Mortara work his magic by turning Howard Gardens near Mdina into what looked like an Italian park. Mr Mortara has done adverts for Renault and many other European brands.

This shoot involved two well seasoned Maltese actors, Polly March and Michael Tabone, who played the role of the parents of one of the protagonists in the Baci advert.

The Malta Audiovisual Production Company, MAPC, which are producing the adverts, are now heavily involved in bringing foreign productions to Malta for the international markets.

Producer Joshua Cassar Gaspar said that Mcast students from the Art and Design faculty at Tarġa gap have attended the various shoots to get an idea of what was going on.

He said that the directors and large clients such as Baci have expressed their satisfaction at using Malta for their commercials because of the wide range of different locations on such a small island.