Psyop and Passion Pictures are set to make the biggest spotmaking showing at SIGGRAPH’s Computer Animation Festival, most notably two commercials for the former studio in the best of show Electronic Theater. The Festival gets underway next month during the SIGGRAPH confab which runs from Aug. 5-9 at the Los Angeles Convention Center.
Psyop’s Electronic Theater-worthy entries were “Gets You Back To You” for Twinings Tea, and “Joy” for Chevrolet. “Gets You Back To You” scored major SHOOT kudos last year, including earning the number one slot in the fall 2011 VFX/Animation Chart and being named the second best VFX/animation spot of the year in our Year-End Wrap. “Gets You Back To You” is a poetic, painterly sojourn from adversity to calm, directed by the Psyop collective via Psyop/Smuggler for London ad agency Abbott Mead Vickers (AMV) BBDO.
The spot opens in a small boat on a stormy sea with a woman navigating what at first is a tumultuous ride, losing an oar and left with but one to paddle her way to safety. She hangs in there but seems to be fighting a losing battle until nature intervenes with wings from above.
Indeed a flock of gulls enters the picture and lifts the boat above the churning waves, eventually landing the craft on much more subdued, peaceful waters.
At this point, we see some fish, the woman can even dip her hand in the water in a soothing, relaxing moment. As the boat approaches the shoreline, someone is waiting for her.
The woman steps out of the boat; we see her foot plant in the sand under water amidst coastal life.
The person who greets her looks strangely familiar. It turns out to be her “other self.”
The two converge as one, at which point a super reads, “Gets you back to you,” accompanied by the Twinings Tea logo.
Even in the animation spot’s early tumult, there’s an awe-inspiring beauty as if we’re watching a moving painting which has captured nature in all its power and splendor–and later in its restorative calm.
As the nuanced piece unfolds, so too does the realization set in that we are witnessing the woman’s emotional journey from the hectic machinations of everyday life–as mother, wife, worker, daughter, sister and friend–to eventually returning to one’s inner self, as if taking a moment to enjoy who she is, to recharge, relax, reflect and put life into context.
“Gets You Back To You” was part of an ambitious campaign that hopes to inspire women, no matter how busy they are, to take 10 quality minutes every day to focus on, enjoy and reconnect with themselves. Twinings Tea can prove to be an ally in that restful, rejuvenating undertaking.
“Take 10 with Twinings” encourages women to set aside a little time for themselves–to have a cup of tea, to garden, listen to music, read a book, anything that will help them reconnect with who they are.
Also making the Electronic Theater lineup was Psyop’s Chevrolet “Joy” spot in which CG insects get aboard a Chevy Sonic–mainly on the vehicle’s front grill–for the ultimate speedy joy ride. Job came out of McCann Erickson, New York and Detroit, and debuted on this year’s Super Bowl.
Passion projects
Meanwhile Passion Pictures registered with one commercial in the Electronic Theater–Clover Milk’s “Way Better” in which a son asks his father how Clover is made. The dad stares skyward, taking us to an animated wonderland, kind of a Milky Way galaxy/factory as depicted by the talent at South African studio Shy the Sun, which is repped in Paris and N.Y. by Passion Pictures, and by Passion’s Strange Beast in London. The Shy the Sun collective also collaborated with Cape Town studio BlackGinger on the whimsical, heartwarming spot for Johannesburg agency Joe Public.
Passion additionally scored in the overall Computer Animation Festival with Jack Daniels “Tennessee Honey” for agency Arnold, Boston. Pete Candeland of Passion directed this spot which takes a departure from the queen bee’s rule, introducing us instead to the “king bee” who breaks out of the hive and buzzes through his nature’s fiefdom, blasting through bark and finally bursting into a bottle of Jack Daniel’s Tennessee Whiskey, converting it to Jack Daniel’s Tennessee Honey, the first new product launch since 1997 for the whiskey maker.
The new brew is a mix of Jack Daniels’s old No. 7 Tennessee Whiskey with a proprietary honey liqueur.
The rogue bad boy animated bee is a Passion studio creation.
“Spirit of the Euro”
Bent Image Lab, Portland, Ore., made its mark with a Computer Animation Festival spot, “Spirit of the Euro” for Coca-Cola out of agency Santo, which maintains offices in Buenos Aires, London and Milan.
In the spot, a crazed soccer fan dressed in red and white Coca-Cola colors flies aboard a giant football shoe that runs on bottles of Coke and spews out a refreshing exhaust of carbonated bottles in the shape of soccer balls. The bubbles shower the city, transforming its residents into fun loving crazy soccer fans.
This wild ride was directed by mixed-media artisan Carlos Lascano of Bent Image Lab. For the commercial, Lascano married live-action human eyes with 3D animation. “It’s worth the effort because it brings life to the eyes and a deeper human connection to the animated characters,” he observed.
In describing the value and process behind the human eyes and CG animation composite technique, Lascano related, “We filmed the eyes of two dozen people. The idea was to achieve emotions that would translate into eyes darting in different directions–which were later incorporated into the characters’ performance. I also had the fun job of getting to choose which take would be appropriate for which scene and emotion, and how to create an animated performance that would seamlessly incorporate the live-action eyes.”
This coming together was done in cinema stereo 3D.
The commercials include a :45 and :30 version for Poland, and a :30 for the Ukraine.
Showcase deja vu
The visually arresting title sequence for The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo also earned a place in the Computer Animation Festival. This comes after the piece last month earned Tim Miller a slot in the 2012 Saatchi & Saatchi New Directors Showcase, unveiled at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity.
Miller is co-founder and creative director of Blur Studio, Venice, Calif., which additionally saw its cinematic trailer for video game Prey 2 gain inclusion in the Computer Animation Festival.
Among the other visual effects/animation studios with an ad industry pedigree that scored entries in the Computer Animation Festival were: Framestore for the feature film Captain America: The First Avenger; The Moving Picture Company (MPC) for the Bon Iver music video “We Are Music”; and Double Negative Visual Effects for its work on the feature John Carter.
Awards
The Computer Animation Festival’s Best in Show, Jury Award, Best Student Project, and Well Told Fable Prize recipients were announced in advance of the August showcase event.
Best in Show distinction was bestowed upon the film Reflexion directed by Yoshimichi Tamura of PlanKtoon, France. Set in a Paris boutique, the short centers on Louise who gazes at her reflection in surrounding mirrors. Suddenly realizing that she’s late for a date with her fiance, she rushes to her home to get ready. Reflexion deals with women’s concerns about their appearance.
The Jury Award went to How to Eat Your Apple directed by Erick Oh from the U.S. The film shows us a delicious apple and varied ways to eat it.
Best Student Project Prize was earned by Estefan, a short directed by Jeff Call of Brigham Young University. The storyline has Estefan, the world’s greatest hairdresser, confronting a situation in which his reputation is on the line. He must design a hairstyle for Clara, a woman with no hair.
And the Well Told Fable Prize went to Rosette, directed by Romain Borrel, Gael Falzowski, Benjamin Rabaste and Vincent Tonelli of Supinfocom Aries, France. This piece takes us to a cured meats deli where a female customer starts fantasizing about the butcher. She takes us into a cliched vision of couple-hood within a universe of pork products.
