The Mill's challenge was to create an entirely CG elephant that was full of character and personality, whilst ensuring it maintained a sense of realism featuring every element of detail possible, including wrinkles, skin folds and careful texturing to ensure the skin and hair had a sense of realism in the way they captured every light reflection.
As well as creating a photo-real model, using a real elephant from Woburn Safari Park named Chandrika as reference, the team had to seamlessly rig and comp the elephant into each live action plate so it could realistically interact with the young boy protagonist.
Lead 3D artist Jon Wood played a key role in bringing the imaginary creature to life, he comments: "This was one of the first CG projects we've been involved in wherein we used muscle and skin simulations to recreate the way the underlying physiology of the elephant influences the way its skin slides, bulges and folds. This really helped to give a more real feeling to the way the elephant moves and interacts. We're immensely proud of the finished product, which marks another milestone in character creation at The Mill."
Agency: JWT
Producer: Toby Clifton
Creatives: Claudia Southgate, Verity Fenner
Production Company: Blink
Director: Bjorn Ruhmann
Producer: Sam Levene
Editing Company: Trim
Editor: Paul Hardcastle
Edit Assist: Elise Butt
VFX & Design: The Mill
Executive Producer: Ian Berry
Shoot Supervisor: Jon Wood
2D Lead Artist: Gaz Brannan
3D Lead Artists: Jon Wood, Jorge Montiel
2D Artist: Carl Norton
3D Artists: Andreas Greichen, Paul Liaw, Fabio Bonvicini, Suraj Odedra, James Mulholland, Paul Claessens, Emanuel Strixner, Michael O'Donoghue, Adam Darrah, Dan Moore, JeanMarie Vouillon
Assistant Producer: Tom Manton