In this campy humorous :30 conceived by Minneapolis-based agency Periscope for Trolli candies, we are introduced to an offbeat guy gleefully going about his day while strapped to a T-Rex dinosaur. He makes a supermarket run, goes to work, jogs in the park, and takes a romantic stroll on the beach–the latter alongside his girlfriend who is also attached to a dinosaur. He even pops a Trolli Sour Bite candy into her mouth.
Rodrigo Garcia Saiz of Central Film North directed “Dino Trip” with visual effects from Zoic Studios.
The Zoic team, led by Chris Korn, utilized a stop motion dinosaur to amplify the humor embedded in the awkward trek, starting in Z Brush to create an initial design and then crafting a stop motion armature based on those templates. Next, they pieced the armature together and built the sculpture on top of it, filled their mold with foam latex, and painted the final model. For animation, seasoned stop motion animator Kim Blanchette utilized stop motion animation software Dragonframe to create the desired aesthetic.
An early passion for stop motion animation spurred by King Kong combined with a background in makeup effects and prosthetics made Korn a fitting designer for this project. He notes, “It’s a really great change of pace to get out of the computer and physically create something with your hands and then animate it to come to life even further. Each step of the process was surprising and an enjoyable challenge.”
