This festive spot from the creatives at adam&eveDDB sees an array of the Aardman family members connect via a Google+ 'Hangout'. Watch out for Trixie and Captain Cuddlepuss from Creature Comforts, Shaun the Sheep, Ginger from Chicken Run and of course Wallace and Gromit as they appear together in the same film for the very first time.
Director:
Merlin Crossingham
Production Company:
Aardman Animation
Agency:
adam&eveDDB
"As soon as Aardman were onboard with adam&eveDDB's script we started talking with them about the project" says Mill Executive VFX Producer Luke Colson. "To be part of a project that involved such iconic characters was a real honour. This is also the kind of tricky project that our Mill Studio team is perfectly set up to deal with."
The Mill was brought in to create the 'Hangout' user interface and bring all these much loved Aardman characters together with seamless continuity. "Essentially we had six streams of content over approximately 60 seconds each" explains The Mill VFX Producer Carl Phillips. "This is actually a lot of animation, so any edit change had to be watched for continuity very closely. As animations were done, even if rough, we would drop these into the corresponding place in the edit, and we literally continued this process for days, making tweaks to framing, UI and edit as and when the animations went in. Then, when we had all the completed animations in place we graded the final individual animations. This is where the consistency was fully achieved."
The result is 60 seconds of an Aardman character meeting (online) for the very first time. Take a look and see how well they get on which other. And what they all get for Christmas!
Meet Wallace and Gromit's Creative Director in our interview with Merlin Crossingham.
Agency: adam&eveDDB
Producer: Sophie Stewart
Creative Director: Ben Priest
Creatives: Aidan McLure, Laurent Simon
Account Director: Miranda Hipwell
Production Company: Aardman Animation
Director: Merlin Crossingham
Producer: Helen Argo
Production Coordinator: Louise Johnson
Editing Company: Aardman Animation / The Mill
Editor: Charlotte Carr
Edit Assist: William Barnett
VFX & Design: The Mill
Executive Producer: Luke Colson
VFX Producer: Carl Phillips
2D Lead Artists: Kwok Lam, Oliver Harris
2D Artists: Tom Kimberley, Greg Howe-Davies, Cameron Smither
Motion Graphics: Ryan Brotherston