“But it won’t happen to me.” Despite decades of seatbelt awareness, the habit is still not universal. In Quebec, roughly one third of people who die in passenger-vehicle crashes were not wearing their seatbelt. People feel inviolable in a car. Until they’re in an accident – and that accident might be life-changing.

So SAAQ (Société de l’assurance automobile du Québec), LG2, Nova Film and director, Olivier Staub, gave drivers a dose of reality.   

They created a lifelike crash-test dummy modelled on Christian, a young adult who does not always buckle up on short, familiar trips. As Christian’s true double, the dummy allowed him to witness his own simulated accident.

The film brings Christian and his parents, Josette and Pierre, into the crash facility, where they are confronted with the simulated accident of Christian’s double. None of them are actors, and the emotional force of the film comes from that reality. Christian knew he was part of a seatbelt campaign, but he did not know he was about to see a version of himself crash.

There were no rehearsals, no second take and no way to recreate the emotion afterwards.

“When I read the script, I immediately knew this was a great story. The idea was powerful and disturbing: raise awareness by making someone witness their own death in an accident. This film depended entirely on authenticity, Olivier Staub stated. “The point was not to make an example out of one person. It was to challenge the myth that short-distance trips without a seatbelt are harmless.”

To protect the first reaction, the shoot was covered with thirteen cameras – five inside the vehicles, five outside the crash zone and three focused on Christian and his parents. The result is a public-safety film that turns an abstract warning into something immediate and personal. The Realistic Dummy makes the danger impossible to dismiss.

The film is already gaining strong traction online, with more than 256,000 views on YouTube.

Credits
Client: SAAQ
Client Team: Anne Frédérique Vigneault, Éric Lambert
Agency: LG2
Creative Director: Nicolas Boisvert
Copywriters: Félix-Antoine Belleville, Éric Chavagnac
Art Director: Megan Plamondon
Production: Nova Film
Director: Olivier Staub
Director of Photography: Olivier Staub
Executive Producer: Charles Gaudreau
Producer: Sam Petitclerc
Editor: LP Gagné
Colourist: Éric Denis @ Studio Element
Sound Engineer: Dominic Cabana @ Circonflex
Original Music: Circonflex