We open on a man pouring milk into a bowl of cereal as his cat watches intently. Banished to the backyard so the man can enjoy his breakfast without being stared at, the cat suddenly sprouts opposable thumbs. A highlight moment finds the cat picking up a ball with ease thanks to his newfound dexterity and realizing he will now be able to do all sorts of things he couldn’t do before.
His feline friends in the neighborhood also grow thumbs, enabling them to thumb through books on military strategy (as well as file their claws and do needlepoint), and before long, the cats organize an army, and they’ve got only one thing on their minds–Cravendale milk!
Meanwhile in another commercial, a Lexus CT 200h hybrid hatchback is put through its paces on a massive platform atop a mountain. The staggering challenge at first calls for daring high sports performance as the platform moves about significantly. Then as it stabilizes, the car can pull back a bit, reverting to “Eco Hybrid” from “Sport” mode.
A voiceover relates that the two-mode hybrid system “gives you power when you need it, and economy when you don’t. The world’s first luxury hybrid hatch: the Lexus CT 200h, a beautiful contradiction.”
These two spots–for Cravendale and Lexus–top this quarter’s SHOOT Visual Effects and Animation Chart. The Moving Picture Company (MPC), London, served as visual effects house on the number one entry, Cravendale’s “Cats With Thumbs,” while right behind it was Lexus’ “A Beautiful Contradiction,” for which Fuel VFX, Sydney was the visual effects studio.
All thumbs Created by Wieden+Kennedy, London, and directed by Ulf Johansson of Smith and Jones Films, London, Cravendale’s “Cats With Thumbs” benefited from the visual effects acumen of the MPC ensemble.
Real cats were cast for the commercial and weeks were spent training each of the felines to perform a particular activity such as playing with a ball or touching pages in a book.
In the meantime, London’s Artem constructed fake cat limbs seven times the scale of actual cat limbs.
Once the cats proved proficient at their tasks, live-action plates of the cats in action were shot at London’s Malcolm Ryan Studios, then a hand artist was shot manipulating the prosthetic cats limbs in front of a bluescreen.
It was the key yet daunting responsibility of MPC to seamlessly blend the live-action elements.
“Every take was carefully recorded and immediately pre-composited in FCP and Nuke on the set in order to assure that all of the elements worked nicely together,” MPC lead Flame artist and visual effects supervisor Kamen Markov explained.
After the final material was selected and cut by editor Russell Icke of The Whitehouse, London, MPC began the compositing process.
“We had to come up with a lot of creative solutions until the agency, the director and we were satisfied with the look and the performance of the cats,” Markov said, noting, “We tried to pay attention to all the small details, including finding and compositing the best eyelines, shoulder or head movements, little flicks and movements of the mouths, ears, winks, etc.”
“Cats With Thumbs” is the debut commercial in an ambitious Cravendale campaign that takes small observations–in the case of “Cats With Thumbs,” it is “why do cats stare when you’re pouring milk?”–and milks them for drama, building up to absurdly intense conclusions.
The idea is to play with the mismatched intensity that exists between people who, in general, don’t put all that much thought into the milk they buy, according to Heath, and the folks at Cravendale “who go to unique lengths to make their milk the best you can buy.”
We’ll see this premise played out in future Cravendale commercials–cats were featured in the campaign’s first spot because “cats felt like the stickiest thing to launch the campaign with,” said Freddie Powell, a creative on the job from Wieden+Kennedy.
While MPC finessed the visuals, Wieden+Kennedy sought the perfect voice to narrate the commercial, and Tim Curry, who in addition to acting onscreen is an in-demand voice actor, won the job with a delivery that builds in intensity.
Powell’s voice is also heard in the spot. Wave London engineer Jack Sedgwick took the Wieden+Kennedy creative’s meows and purrs and mixed them with those uttered by real cats to create all sorts of kitty noises.
The appropriately dramatic score accompanying the spot was composed by Multiverse through London’s Tonic Music Ltd.
Ultimately, “Cats With Thumbs” succeeds because the cats look and feel real.
Johansson actually won the job over other competing directors because he was insistent on capturing the felines in-camera as opposed to creating some CG cats.
“Even with the very best CG we haven’t yet reached a point where you look at a completely CG-generated cat and believe it’s real,” Wieden+Kennedy, London creative Sam Heath observed. “You’re innately aware that something is digitally created, you know it’s not real, so you’re less invested in it. You don’t care as much or believe as much, and with a spot like this where you’re asking people to make such leaps, it would have stopped them from going along with us.”
Apparently, lots of people are willing to believe in “Cats With Thumbs.” The spot is airing on television in the U.K. but has found a worldwide audience on YouTube.
Posted on February 28, “Cats With Thumbs” had raked in some two million views and thousands of thumbs ups at press time.
Furthermore, the main cat in the spot–dubbed Bertrum Thumbcat–has become a social media darling, communicating with his fans via Twitter and Facebook.
Heath and Powell were two of four creatives from Wieden+Kennedy, London, on the job; the others being Chris Groom and Hollie Sayers. The agency team also included producer Lucy Russell and planner Theo Izzard-Brown.
“A Beautiful Contradiction” Saatchi & Saatchi Australia conceived of and Matt Murphy of Goodoil Films, Sydney, directed this tour de force automotive performance commercial titled “A Beautiful Contradiction,” with visual effects from Fuel VFX.
Murphy and his Goodoil producer Ben Scandrett-Smith approached Fuel VFX with a brief that required a precision drive showcasing the Lexus CT 200h’s handling prowess in its respective Sport and Eco Hybrid modes. The vehicle’s handling talents were to be demonstrated on a moving platform set against a dramatic coastal bluff.
The director brought a pre-visualization animatic to Fuel VFX to convey the mood he wanted to create–assertiveness, speed and power when the car is in its Sport mode, and gracefulness, ease and tranquility when it’s in Eco Hybrid gear.
The team at Fuel responded with a story reel to help determine how many shots would require the usage of a full CG version of the car which the Fuel VFX ensemble built in Maya and rendered with Maxwell.
Fuel visual effects artists were able to replicate the Lexus CT 200h with photoreal accuracy to ensure a seamless transition between shots of the real Lexus, and those shots that required a CG version.
The car was filmed by DP Susan Stitt on a static platform which had a small amount of textured surface and was subsequently recreated for the moving CG gimble.
During a helicopter shoot, the headland location–a steep mountainous terrain with a sheer drop that extends out to a body of water–was scanned and recreated in 3D in order to give the artists flexibility during the complex edit by Bernard Garry of The Editors, Sydney.
Great care was needed to ensure that the moving Lexus tracked seamlessly with the moving CG platform and against the sky and sea.
It was essential that the balance between the original pre-viz and final output was right, so several edits were done to ensure that the mood, story arc and realism reflected what director Murphy and the Saatchi team–including executive creative director Steve Back, creative director Steve Jackson, copywriter John Mcelvey, art directors Peter Galmes and Simon Cox, and producer Llew Griffiths–wanted to achieve.
Visual effects supervisor Andrew Hellen of Fuel VFX related, “A lot of attention was paid to the edit and we worked closely with Matt and Bernard Garry to keep it live through our production schedule. We continually fed them shots to help find the right balance between the Sports mode where the car moves dynamically, fighting to gain control of the platform, then finding a moment when the car slows on the platform for a beat to switch to Eco and the Lexus gracefully gains control, leveling the platform for the final few shots.”
Hellen worked closely on the job with his Fuel VFX colleagues Celia Nicholas and Erica Ford, among others.
“A Beautiful Contradiction” made its debut in Australia back on March 27. The sound designer on the commercial was Simon Kane of Songzu, Sydney.
