Last year we were approached by Ad Works to create an animated commercial campaign to highlight the vast selection of various product categories available at Total Wine stores.
Total Wine - Cabernet Sauvignons commercial
We produced three spots. Two of three commercials were all created with a mixture of stop motion paper animation and motion graphic trickery. All of the assets were constructed out of paper and then animated over a green screen (including 129 individual letters for a single commercial). Then all the pieces were put back together in post.
Here are some images of the production process.
The first animation test. After seeing this, our client requested we find ways to make the animation feel more dimensional.
So we tested that. We attempted to do everything practically in camera. After this test we decided to build our elements with as much dimension as possible, shoot the pieces seperately, and comp everyone back together.
More refined thumbnailed storyboard for the Vodka animation.
Cupcake Styleframe
Bottle Style Frame
Froggy B broken up into his many pieces, printed, and ready for cutting. The original frog from the test animation hanging out up in the top of the picture.
The other thing that stuck around from our second test was how to construct the product names into boxes. Plans for the Grey Goose title.
Building one of three mountain models for Ice Cap.
It may have been a logical leap, but we settled on an Easter Island head as the symbol for Idol. This is the first attempt at building it.
Getting set to start production for Vodka.
After Vodka was completed we started production on Cabernet. This was our mini cyc in the old studio. It was hot in there. Really. Really. Hot.
For the sequence when a cannon ball splashed into water. We animated the splash traditionally in Flash, then printed out each frame on paper to use as templates.
We traced those templates onto the nice paper we chose for water, then cut out the individual states.
For some of our models, we took time to build mock ups in 3d so that we could use UV mapping as a way to figure out where to paint our textures, what shapes to print, and how to reassemble it. For Red Truck, the story called for the truck to drive around a corner and up to the camera. So we actually used the 3d model to previs the animation and get the timing right before animating the practical model.
Preparing to print the Red Truck pieces. The full texturing process isn't quite finished here...
The plan for transitioning from Van Gogh to the icing on Cupcake.
Wrapping up post production in After Effects.
After the spots had been out for a while, we were contacted to update the Cabernet piece. We were asked to replace two of the original brands. Luckily for us, the brands that we were given could fit nicely into the story. The first was Canoe Ridge.
So we built this awesome Canoe.
Back in production.
Animating the last of the titles.
