Though we don’t hear exactly what people are saying, we can in a sense see their conversations in Vodafone’s “Speech Bubbles” directed by Walter Stern of Academy, London, with special effects from Framestore CFC, London, for agency JWT, London.
The white bubbles form above people as they talk, bringing 3D life to an accepted 2D comic book device. In this spot, wobbly word balloons–some of which grow to enormous proportions–emanate from folks who are on their mobile phones. We see a variety of people going about their day, singly and in groups, talking on the phone, with each sporting his or her own set of bubbles. The bubbles vary according to the nature of the conversation, though no words appear in the seemingly ubiquitous balloons.
Bubbles appear over a solitary man gabbing on the cell phone, a group of patrons seated at an outdoor café. We even see word bubbles flying out of open windows on a moving bus. One guy walks down subway stairs, taking his bubble with him only to have it burst as it snags against a railing. The silhouette of a giant word bubble casts a giant shadow against a tall office building. There are bubbles in the elevator–and the one formed in a car looks like an airbag has been activated.
We finally come full circle to the first man we saw, a series of bubbles growing above him. The camera then reveals a cityscape full of large floating word bubbles, underscoring that Vodafone customers can talk longer abroad in exchange for a small connection charge per call.
Each bubble appears slightly different from the next, changing shape and expanding as unseen words fill it. Each actor presents different body language, with some looking like they were engaged in business conversations, others in some personal gab, and so on.
The JWT team consisted of creative director Steve Dunn, creatives Jason Berry and Ben Short, and producer Sarah Patterson.
The bubbles were created over a five-week period by a creative ensemble at Framestore CFC, London, that included visual effects supervisor/senior technical director Jake Mengers, technical director Simon French, lead animator Dale Newton, animators Paul Denchard, James Healy and Dean Robinson, lead Inferno artist Alex Thomas, and Inferno artists Christophe Allender and Marcelo Pasqualino, and producer Abby Orchard. Telecine artist for Framestore was Matt Turner.
