Passion, which maintains animation studios in London, Paris and NY, has added Stockholm-based directors againstallodds–a.k.a. Niklas Rissler and Derek Picken–to its roster for U.K. and U.S. content representation. The directorial duo’s debut at Passion is “Gladly Tuesday,” a 1930s-’40s animation style spot for Bank of America out of Hill Holliday, Boston.
The :30 voiced by Will Arnett was made in the style of a vintage Popeye cartoon and stars several of its classic characters including Bluto, Olive Oyl, Popeye himself and J. Wellington Wimpy, who demonstrates the functionality of Bank of America’s mobile banking app by “gladly” paying his hamburger debts via his mobile phone and hence “finally making good on his word”
Rissler and Picken said the biggest challenge was to integrate the phones into the spot as they are so anachronistic in the context. The directors deployed traditional animation techniques and painstaking attention to detail to create the distinctive Popeye style of yesteryear. The job entailed hand drawing each frame and mimicking movement patterns and frame rates from the original cartoons. Helping to achieve the desired effect was taking the work through an ageing process–scratches, desaturation, line bleed.
Simon Quinn, producer at Passion, observed that “againstallodds did some tests for the pitch and you almost couldn’t believe they weren’t from the 1930s. It’s amazing that modern directors were able to recreate that classic style because for most it’s a lost art.”
Picken and Rissler continue to maintain their Stockholm studio, also named againstallodds, which specializes in CG, 2D and stop-motion animation, contemporary illustration and live-action filmmaking for commercials, music videos and digital advertising. Againstallodds’ campaign for Tylenol through MacLaren McCann Toronto in 2005 brought the company worldwide attention. Since then the studio has produced award-winning campaigns for clients including Coke Zero (W+K Amsterdam), which earned three Cannes Silver Lions in 2008, Jet Blue (JWT New York) and AIDES (the PSA “Smutley” honored in the Public Service category of the AICP Show, from agency Goodby Silverstein & Partners San Francisco). Recently againstallodds won the Public Choice Favorite Commercial prize at the British Animation Awards for its WWF spot “We Don’t Farm Like This.”
