Elephants, rhinos and gorillas, oh my! In OfficeMax's new ad campaign from agency Preston Kelly Minneapolis and director Ben Smith of The Mill, it's African wildlife who steals the show in three 15-second spots.
"The team from Preston Kelly was great to work with-they were very collaborative and fun," explains Smith. "They initially contacted us to create this campaign because they had seen the lap giraffe from the DIRECTV 'Opulence' ad, and knew they wanted to work with the people that created him. Our goal was to make humorous spots, and make them look as believable as possible, since they are all entirely CG."
Director:
Ben Smith
Production:
The Mill
Agency:
Preston Kelly
In order to make these realistic CG animals perform, the timings and actions of the animals were blocked out by The Mill team during pre-vis. After analyzing reams of animal footage to understand how each one moved, a team of animators lovingly key framed the animals into life. Various simulations were created to add realistic skin and muscle movements to the animation.
Smith laughingly adds, "We found great references for the elephant spot by searching for 'fat guy on Unicycle' on YouTube."
Try to ignore this elephant in the room!
Agency:Preston Kelly
Producer: Anne Swarts
Creative Director: Chris Preston
Art Directors: Peter Tressel, Melissa Tresidder
Composers: Alex Berglund, Tom Lecher at Echo Boys
Sound Design: Jerome Rankine at Rumble
Production: The Mill
Director: Ben Smith
Director of Content: Ian Bearce
VFX & Design: The Mill
Director of Content: Ian Bearce
EP: Jared Yeater
VFX Producer: John Skeffington
Creative Director: Ben Smith
2D Lead Artist: Antoine Douadi
3D Lead Artist: Jeff Lopez
2D Artists: Nuke: Dan Difelice; Smoke: Brendan O'Neil
CG Animation: John Wilson, Sam Cress
CG Rigger: Timothy Kim, Luis San Juan Pallares, Stanley Ilin
TD lead: Joji Tsuruga
CG Modeling: Timothy Kim, Tom Cushwa, Olivier Varteressian, Laurent Giaume, Mattias Bjurstrom
CG Lighting Lead: Thomas Bardwell CG
Lighting: Jimmy Sans, Michael Marsek
CG Rigging: Iker De Los Mozos
CG Artist: Paul Liaw