The Mill, alongside Simon Ratigan out of HLA and adam&eveDDB, have created a festive film set to an upbeat jazz soundtrack and featuring chef Heston Blumenthal putting the finishing touches to his signature Christmas dessert for supermarket Waitrose.
The spot opens with the question, “What makes Christmas, Christmas?” and proceeds to show scenes of seasonal traditions such as putting up the Christmas tree and writing letters to Santa Claus. But the emphasis of the film is predominantly on the importance of food and its power to bring families and friends together.
Lead 2D Artist Pete Rypstra says, “As this spot was filmed back in autumn, we worked on bringing a real sense of the colder winter months to the film in the form of frost, snow and seasonal trees.”
Colourist Seamus O’Kane describes working on the film, “Continuing in the vein of the successful autumn spot that we did for Waitrose, this film has the familiar scenarios of Christmas presented in beautifully observed and photographed scenes that evoke both the warmth and nostalgia of the season and contrast the inviting interiors with the colder greyer world of the British winter.”
“We were very conscious that the great joy of Christmas is in sharing food and warmth with friends and family, so we strove to give the food a vivacity and energy that became uplifting and appealing but still retained a natural sense within the Christmas palette.”
“Simon always grounds his work within the parameters of real life and this film becomes so much more inviting in its appeal because of that link to what we know.”