Enzo’s Monday Motion #21: Animals
There are some variables that quadruple the stress on projects. Using live animals is one of them, as they are unpredictable as the weather. Still we see them all the time in commercials or film. Why do we get our selves into some much trouble?
Super Star Kittens
Somewhere we like the idea that there’s a human side in every creature, having the same dilemma’s in life as we do. A nice example is the Dutch children’s show ‘Poesjes’ where we see the life of single mom Mimi and her four kittens. Like big stars they were the tyrants of the set. When they felt like sleeping, the crew had to stop filming and start editing.
Even though they had a rough script, they had to work with what the diva’s felt like doing. Since mother Mimi didn’t enjoy staying on set for longer than 5 minutes, she became a career-mom who had help from ‘uncle Boudewijn’ to watch the kittens. Enjoy the whole season of Poesjes online.
Biggest lesson: improvise and adjust.
The Dog strikes back
Sometimes you don’t have the luxury to go of script. The lead character in Volkswagens 2012 super bowl ad also had to loose weight like Christian Bale in The Machinist. Thank god for the prop artists of Creatures Effects who fixed him a special dog fat-suit.
Challenge accepted
Some people can’t stop adding challenges to the project. The people from Mfive used a real dog in a stop motion commercial for the Russian mobile operator Beeline. A great example which accentuates the added value of pre-production.
Thumbs up
Cat owners know that look of their pet when you’re enjoying a meal or drink. Wishing they could get there hands on it. In the TVC ‘Cats with thumbs’ we see what can happen if our furry friends have more control over their paws. Special effects company Artem helped a hand by creating very detailed matching paws for each of the cats, which were tracked and composited onto the cats’ bodies.
No guts, no glory
Director Juan Cabral was pleasantly surprised when Cadbury Chocolate accepted his crazy concept using a gorilla for their chocolate spot. Since gorilla’s aren’t the most flexible actors the next challenge was to find a convincing gorilla suit. The quest ended in Hollywood where the suit came in a package deal within less than three operators (one inside the suit and two to operate remotely the facial mimics).
Feeling over confident Cabral convinced the client to only broadcast the 90-second spot version, since the tension build up was essential for the plot. The trust of the client payed of becoming TVC of the year, reaching over 12 millions views, 300 spoofs and 10% more sales of chocolate. Even Phill Collins lifted on the succes, storming the top charts again with his hit.
Lesson: if you believe in your strong concept, fight for it.
More C(GI)ontrol
Animal suits also have their disadvantages: they often limit the camera angles and freedom of movement. More importantly they often lack in authenticity. CGI tackled the first issues easily, but also struggled with the obviously added fake layer. It wasn’t until 1995 production agency Rhythm and Hues tackled this hurdle with the feature film ‘Babe’. They only added what was necessary, which was in this case the mouth for all the dialogues.
That same company amazed me again in 2012 with Life of Pi where you are really unaware what’s real and what’s nog (if there ever was a real tiger in there). This is nicely shown in the campaign website. Even though it’s somewhere cheating, I can only give big props for the execution.
In the end a convincing story is all that matters.
