“Bumble-Less” is more.
Indeed in the case of this client-direct Bing spot, intentionally going for “less” from a technical standpoint–even during a stretch when stacked up against visually sophisticated Super Bowl commercials–proved to be the fast track leading to the top of SHOOT’s first quarterly VFX/Animation Top Ten Chart of 2012.
Bumble, a.k.a. the Abominable Snowman, stars in “Bumble-less,” marking his modern-day return from the classic, longstanding stop motion animated TV special Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer.
Directed by Ken Lidster of Portland, Ore.-based Bent Image Lab, the :30 commercial finds the beast trying to instill fear into a couple of elves, but his roar isn’t what it used to be, and they laugh at him.
Determined to get his monster mojo back, Bumble consults the Bing search engine. Typing “scary monster” into the search field, he quickly locates some helpful videos that help bring him back to frighteningly normal. Inspired by what he sees, the furry, scruffy white creature goes back outside, sneaks up on the unsuspecting elves again and scares the daylights out of them.
“Decide what your holidays will look like with Bing,” a voiceover intones at the end of the spot.
There was no advertising agency involved in the making of “Bumble-Less.” Bent Image Lab worked directly with the client, including Sean Carver, director, brand entertainment at Microsoft, Bing.
Initially, Lidster directed four viral videos–“Bumble-Less,” “Hot Yoga,” “Social Search” and “You Won’t Believe This.” But Bing liked what they saw so much that they asked the Bent Image Lab crew to go back into the studio and lens more scenes so that they could expand the viral videos–ranging from 22 to 25 seconds in length–into :30 television spots, according to Bent Image Lab executive producer Ray Di Carlo.
“It was very exciting for us because we love these characters,” Di Carlo said, noting Bent Image Lab has revived the Rudolph gang for various projects over the years. That said, the Bing assignment marked the first time that Lidster personally got to take the reins of a production featuring the iconic characters, and the director wanted to make sure that Bumble as well as the others looked like they did in the famed television special.
Lidster and his team of animators did their homework, taking the time to watch Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer again–and, surely, they’ve already seen it numerous times–just to ensure “that everybody was completely on board with the style and how they stood and how they spoke and moved,” the director said.
Stopped in its tracks “Bumble-Less” certainly appears as though it could have been excerpted from the original show even though the techniques used in stop-motion today differ greatly from back in the 1960s. “The technical side has advanced miles and miles away from where it was back then. We have systems now to check out how the animation is going as we are working, and we get instant feedback. That whole side of it has evolved even in the last five years,” Lidster said, adding, “Five years ago we were using completely different setups and film, and now everything is completely digital.”
One thing you’ll notice if you look back at Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer is that the characters don’t always move so smoothly. Keeping that in mind, Lidster went for a clunky feel in “Bumble-Less.”
“When you see Bumble hiding behind the hill, and he jumps out, it is not super smooth animation,” Lidster pointed out, stressing its importance. “If it was, it would feel incorrect.”
Lidster, DP Dan Ackerman and their team shot “Bumble-Less” in five days. The production starred a Bumble who stood about 14 inches tall. He had a mechanical armature at his core, housed in a foam body that was covered with fur.
Bumble’s feet could be screwed down to the set to keep him in place, and all of his fingers could be articulated. “There is no clay anywhere,” Di Carlo noted.
Scary videos Besides animating Bumble and the elves for “Bumble-Less,” Lidster also had to create the two “scary monster” videos Bumble finds on the Internet. Lidster purposely lowered his production standards for both.
“We wanted the first one to look like a child had done it at home and videotaped it with his parents’ camera,” he said. “But as soon as we got the thing set up and we started lighting it, we thought, ‘This looks too good.’ So we turned on the fluorescents and got a table lamp and blasted it with light so it would look like a kid did it.”
The second video was equally as terrible–again, on purpose.
“The second one was supposed to look like it was from a bad TV puppet show. We did a few takes of it, and it just looked great. So we did another couple of takes where the puppet gets lifted too high, and you can see the arm of the guy who is actually operating it,” Lidster said. “Now that made it funny.”
The director had quite a bit of story to tell in a mere 30 seconds between the initial set-up, the two videos and the final scare.
“That was difficult, but that’s what happens with commercial animation. It’s like that,” Lidster said. “You’re always trying to cram stuff in.”
Additionally, there were certain restrictions on how the Rudolph characters could be portrayed. “When you use these franchise characters, they’re not allowed to actively sell stuff,” Di Carlo explained. “So what you’re seeing is that in these particular spots, the Internet is just part of their lives. They’re not recommending it. They’re just using it.”
