This curious scenario is related in a curious combo animation/live-action technique from bicoastal Curious Pictures. In a bustling wintertime schoolyard, a young boy has gotten his tongue stuck to a metal climbing ladder. A classmate runs to their teacher to tell her of the lad’s predicament. Presumably she’ll be coming to the rescue with "a warm sponge."
The boy understandably grows impatient waiting for his teacher, who seems to be taking an inordinate amount of time to bring water to a boil. Her slow response is explained as we realize that she’s boiling the water to make a delicious Pot Noodles snack—not to extricate her student from his oversized popsicle plight.
Adding to the spot’s appeal is its design, which is based on Avenue Amy, a TV series that Curious Pictures created for cable network Oxygen Media. The Amy style entails laying graphic animation over live action, creating a distinctive look. Joan Raspo, who designed and directed the Amy TV series, wasn’t available for this Pot Noodles package out of London agency HHCL & Partners. In her stead, Curious tapped the TV show’s visual-effects supervisor, Lewis Kofsky, to take on the ad assignment. He worked closely with the HHCL team, as well as with live-action director Steve Bendelack of Baby Films, London.
DP Rob Kitzman shot the live action with actors who are meticulously dressed and heavily made up in keyable colors, against green screen sets. The backdrops are derived from photographic compilations of a variety of real locations that were then turned into 3-D virtual sets. The Curious crew processed and enhanced the live-action footage in After Effects. Choosing vivid colors for the characters’ clothes and props brings the live action into a designed or stylized world. After the initial composite, cel animators draw in outlines to define contour on the characters’ bodies and clothes. Finally, lighting is added in 3-D Studio Max.
The Curious contingent which worked on the "Tongue Tied" live-action footage consisted of effects supervisor Kofsky; producer Nancy Giandomenico; 3-D artists Max Ehrlich, Jeeyun Sung and Piet Suess; and 2-D artists Birgit Rathsmann, Vanessa Vanderbaan, Grace Lu and Molly Schwartz.
The HHCL ensemble included creative director Alan Young, art director Mike Oughton, copywriter Zane Radcliffe and producer Richard Spalding.
Pam Asbury produced for Bendelack at Baby Films.
Offline editor was Alaster Jordan of OBE Partnership, London. (Jordan is one of sev-eral OBE editors repped in the U.S. by Red Car, which has operations in New York, Santa Monica, San Francisco, Chicago, Dallas and Toronto.) Online editor was Rob Moggach of Smoke & Mirrors, London. Sound de-signer was Michael Fentum of Hackenbacker, London.
