A giant piece of toast lumbers through the city, a dragon/snake creature happily dips in and out of the street as if he is swimming in a lake, and a three-eyed monster nervously darts through traffic. These colorful characters and others–all of whom look like they were drawn in crayon by a five-year-old–come to life in AT&T’s :60 “Birthday,” a delightful spot created by BBDO New York and directed by Peter Thwaites, who is repped by Anonymous Content in the U.S. and Gorgeous Enterprises in the U.K.
In the closing seconds of “Birthday,” which combines animation and live action, the drawings start falling down as if the life has gone out of them, then we see a man in a suit (played by Dean Chekvala) sitting on a bench. He also looks deflated. “Remember when you were five, and anything was possible?” a voiceover asks.
The man takes a look at his phone–he’s apparently gotten some good news because his face lights up.
“Happy fifth birthday, again,” the voiceover says.
Both the man and the characters, including the three-eyed monster, spring back to life.
“Birthday,” set to the Gene Wilder-sung “Pure Imagination” from the 1971 film Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, ends with AT&T’s new tagline Rethink Possible. “It’s a whole new effort designed to reframe AT&T so that it’s more optimistic about the possibilities of technology and how they benefit us as people,” BBDO exec creative director/art director Ralph Watson said of the new campaign.
The goal of “Birthday” was to serve as the manifesto spot of the campaign. Watson noted that the creative team didn’t want to create a chest-beating, anthem-style spot but rather a commercial that would impart warmth and inspiration, tapping into the emotion behind Rethink Possible.
There were a number of directors interested in taking on “Birthday,” according to BBDO exec producer Grant Gill, but BBDO had a history with Thwaites, who directed “Up and Up,” an AT&T-sponsored spot supporting Team USA in the recent Winter Olympics, and he impressed the agency with his treatment for “Birthday.” “It was very well written and illustrated,” Gill pointed out, “and he became the clear choice for the project.”
Thwaites recalled receiving the original concept for “Birthday,” noting it was accompanied by a single picture of a cut-out figure that looked like a stick man. “As soon as I saw that image, I thought, ‘This is going to be great,'” Thwaites enthused.
The drawings truly had to feel like the work of a child, so Thwaites employed the production designer’s son Sam, who is five years old, as an artist.
“I didn’t want to force him to do anything he would not normally do, so I said, ‘Okay, draw me what you think Toastman would look like.’ I’d just give him some words, things to play with, and then he’d come up with the characters,” Thwaites shared. “The important thing was the characters had to feel like they were being created by a child’s imagination, not an adult’s version of a child’s imagination.”
Personality
The artisans at The Mill, New York, then took those drawings–Angus Kneale, The Mill’s VFX supervisor and creative director, also took advantage of his four-year-old son’s artistic skills–and turned static characters into moving, breathing beings. “It was important to capture a unique personality in each of the characters,” Kneale said. “Our cel animators went through character explorations to develop a style for each hero. We decided to frame animate the characters by hand, purposefully kept it very naive and rough–this allowed a lot of character to come through just from the line style and texture.”
“In tandem, our 3D VFX and animation team were developing dynamics simulations relative to the weight and size of the characters,” Kneale continued. “Even though they started out as small hand-drawn characters, they also had to feel like they were fifty feet tall and really there. This was an interesting balance to find so that both parameters worked.”
While the character development and animation was an intensive, planned-out process, Thwaites took a looser approach when shooting in L.A. the live-action city footage–with DP Wally Pfister shooting from lower angles to replicate a child’s point of view–these drawings would inhabit. “We were making it up as we went along,” Thwaites said. “It was quite a unique way of shooting for the crew because half the time they didn’t know what was going on, and frankly, neither did I. But that’s how we found lots of odd stuff that we never really would have planned for if we had tried to plan it out precisely.”
There were also happy accidents in the editing room. Kirk Baxter of Rock Paper Scissors cut “Birthday” and made a major contribution when he set the spot to Willy Wonka’s “Pure Imagination.” “Birthday” wasn’t conceptualized around that song, but when everyone heard it, they realized Baxter had struck gold.
“The lyrics sum up what we were trying to get across,” said BBDO exec creative director/writer Greg Hahn. “So we stripped out a lot of the voiceover.” The images and music help to create a world of childhood wonderment. “People light up,” said Hahn, “when they talk about this spot.”
