We’ve all seen Cingular Wireless’ four-pronged, orange character—the guy who’s about two prongs short of an actual phone jack. In past campaigns, this CG-generated spokesfigure (appropriately named "Jack") bounced around the television screen communicating via a cartoon bubble. But recently, Cingular’s agency, BBDO South, Atlanta, wanted to take the Jack character a step further and integrate him into other animated environments. To do this, BBDO South called on director Jim Hardison, from Vinton Studios, Portland, Ore.
The resulting two-spot package utilized two very different animation styles to send the same message. "We knew from the start that the spots were going to be completely different, but the thing that was going to tie them together was going to be the iconic nature of the Jack character," explains Hardison.
The first ad in the campaign, "Ultrasound," opens on a screen commonly seen during a pregnant woman’s ultrasound. A doctor says, "OK, we have an image." Instead of a human baby, an infant Cingular Jack emerges on the screen, seemingly floating in fluid. The doctor’s voice is trying to determine the sex of the "child" when another orange Jack appears, and then a third emerges from behind the second. A supered message asks, "Got a big family?," as a voiceover goes on to explain that Cingular’s Family Talk deal can deliver up to three additional lines, plus four free phones. Another screen shot of the ultrasound at the spot’s conclusion reveals one of the Jacks exclaiming—in its signature cartoon bubble—"We’re running out of womb!"
The second ad, "Stick Figures," features a stick-figure family hand drawn in crayon. The star of the spot is a teenage girl. She tells her fam-ily’s story, which is animated as her narrative unfolds.
"Once there was a family—who didn’t talk," she begins. Behind her appear a dad, a mom and a younger brother. Emblazoned across the latter’s T-shirt is a big "L" (for "loser"), clearly communicating the girl’s feelings about her sibling. She continues, "Then along came this orange dude with a great deal called "Unlimited Family Talk."
This statement is accompanied by the appearance of a crudely drawn Jack floating onto the paper towards the family. "We all got cool phones and talked all the time," she says, as cell phones appear in each of the character’s hands. One by one they all say "good morning" and "good night" to each other via their phones—all, that is, except the teenage girl, who only says "whatever" when spoken to.
Next, the announcer reveals details about Cingular’s family deal, and the girl finishes her story: "And we talked so much we lived happily ever after." The spot’s final cute moment comes when the Cingular Jack floats towards her, followed by a swirl of hearts, and says, "Share the love"—to which she responds, "Whatever!"
According to Hardison, "Stick Figures" and "Ultrasound" each presented its own challenges. Not only did the director have to coordinate two separate animation teams—a CGI crew for "Ultrasound" and a cel animation team for "Stick Figures"—he only had four weeks to turn the entire campaign around.
For "Ultrasound," Hardison obtained footage from an ultrasound technician to help his animators build a realistic environment for the Jacks. The technician brought in videotapes of actual ultrasounds, and explained to Hardison and his team what they were looking at, and how the ultrasound creates the image. "The issue that we came down to was, when you look at an ultrasound, you’re basically looking at a cross section," explains Hardison. "You’re looking in 3-D depth where you get that really odd emerging sense, and you suddenly get an impression that shifts and fades back out again. That’s because the cross section is moving through the object, so we had to figure out how to do that."
With this in mind, the team at Vinton Studios went to work building a screen, using Maya software, to be a nearly exact replica of an ultrasound. Then they created fluid sacs in Maya and worked on building the CG Jack character based on specifications provided by Cingular. "Once all that was built, we had to figure out how the Jack was going to slice through [the environment] so that you could just see cross sections," says Hardison. Jeff White, Vinton Studios lead technical director on the project, set up something called a cutting plane that could slide back and forth through the object, creating the cross-section effect. But something was still missing.
"We found that we really couldn’t get a good sense of the character’s performance this way because there wasn’t enough depth to convey the storyline," explains Hardison. "What we wound up doing was rendering multiple passes of [Jack], then also rendering six or seven passes that were created at various 3-D depths, and pulling it all together. When we hit upon what would be our final look, we called in the ultrasound technician and showed it to him. He was really pleased with it."
Simultaneously, Hardison was dealing with different issues on "Stick Figures." According to the director, the agency wanted the crayoned stick figures to look like a child’s drawing, but not like something you’d see on public access television; the animation had to accomplish a certain sense of artistry. Initially, the lead character was meant to be much younger, giving the ad a considerably softer quality. When it was decided that she would be a 13-year-old, the animators had to adjust the character design to convey a much edgier tone.
"We went back and forth a lot on what the family would look like, and whether we were drawing what this girl’s impression of them was or what they’re actually like," recalls Hardison. "What we decided was that we were capturing what she thought about the whole thing. Once those issues were resolved, the actual animation went very quickly."
Hardison has been working as an animator for over 10 years. He studied animation at Columbia College, Chicago, where he graduated from film school in 1988. In order to finish an animated feature he was working on at school, he picked up freelance work at various commercial production houses in Chicago, where he began perfecting his craft as a computer animator. In the early ’90s, Hardison opened his own animation shop in Chicago, called Image Dynamics, which he shuttered four years ago to join Vinton Studios as a director.
In the spring of 2000, Hardison became creative director of character development in Vinton Studios’ Character Development Lab. While he still maintains his title as director for commercials, he’s shifted his focus to analyzing brands and brand characters for different companies, helping them to revitalize pre-existing characters, or to design new ones when none exists. Since then, he has worked as an episodic director for The PJs, and has contributed to Gary & Mike, two original series created by Vinton Studios.
On the commercial front, Hardison has directed spots for M&Ms via BBDO New York, including "Men and Women," featuring the sexy green M&M getting ogled by a gaggle of men as she walks down the street, until she tells them to "Go buy a bag." "Thesaurus" shows a couple of plain M&Ms try to find synonyms for the word "plain." Last year, Hardison was responsible for animating two AT&T spots—"Splat" and "Whirlwind"—for the AT&T "Boundless" campaign, out of Young & Rubicam, New York, which aired during the 2000 Summer Olympic Games.
