Working closely with adam&eveDDB and directing collective Traktor out of Rattling Stick, The Mill helped to depict a singing baby for this contagiously fun and feel good spot for AA.
The ad sees a father and his baby daughter enjoying a carefree car journey, him smiling and her singing charismatically to the upbeat soundtrack. Whilst at first sight a fairly ordinary situation, it soon becomes clear that the baby is not of the age normally expected to be able to sing such a song and with such personality.
The feel-good nature of the spot is temporarily put at risk as the car’s engine breaks down but an AA support mechanic saves the day and before long the cheery pair are back on their merry way.
The Mill’s VFX team carefully composited the 2D elements that made up the baby’s replacement mouth which appears on screen and added further replacement body plates to enhance the baby’s dancing movements. The team had to swap the teeth of the original baby back into the replacement mouth to maximize authenticity, adding a further degree of complexity.
Mill Shoot Supervisor and 2D Lead Artist Dan Adams explains, ‘It was great to get to work so closely with adam&eveDDB and Traktor on this fun project.
Our task was to subtly enhance and augment specific aspects of the baby’s body as well as complete a full, highly complex mouth replacement, all while ensuring her actions still felt as natural as possible. This enabled the fun and clever concept of the ad to remain at the focus.
It was a pleasure to be a part of this well thought out and well executed creative campaign'
Mill Colourist Mick Vincent explains, ‘This was a complex grade as most of the commercial was shot in overcast light with just one shot of sunshine at the end of the day.
The grade needed to evolve throughout the process as skies and reflections were added to all the shots. Normally we would leave the grade until the end but in this case we had to keep testing each iteration of comps to ensure that the end grade would meet the brand’s identity.’