Mill+ and LatinWorks present ‘A Million Stories’ for Texas Lottery. Directed by Lisha Tan and Andrew Proctor of Mill+, the campaign was produced entirely in-house and provides a beautiful, lighthearted storytelling experience to promote the brand’s Holiday Game Book.
A Million Stories’ shares the many delightful ways in which one can gift a Holiday Game Book, whether to a loved one or a total stranger. The team used real paper elements to help create the animation and brought the holiday spirit to life by mimicking a pop-up book.
Lisha, Andrew and 3D lead artist David Lawson spoke to us about the incredibly hands-on nature of the project. Andrew comments: “There was a delicateness about the animation; like little folded pieces of paper. Everything was built with the idea that it could be made for real – real pieces were cut out and given to the modeling team so that everything had folds and all the details you get from that. So we would test everything for real, then execute it in CG.”
“The folding and unfolding of the paper was probably the biggest challenge of the animation,” adds David. “We studied various origami techniques to achieve just the right look.”
Lisha elaborates on the narrative aspect of the campaign: “In development, we really thought about how these little paper characters might look in real-life whilst retaining the paper, origami, folded aspect. Sometimes I'll design based on what the character's personality should be and I’m often inspired by characters on TV; in Texas Lottery, the office girl is inspired by Joan from Mad Men.”
Watch the companion spot, ‘Tree Tale’, here.
Agency: LatinWorks
Producer: Elizabeth Spiva
Junior Producer: Annabelle Estrada
Production: Mill+
Director: Lisha Tan, Andrew Proctor
Executive Producer: Kim Wildenburg
Creative Director: Lisha Tan, Andrew Proctor
Designers: Helen Hsu, Vince Lee, Mark Kulakoff, Stanley Wong, Manija Emran
Record Company: Everywhere Audio
Editing Company: The Mill
Editors: Luke Kraman, Victor Jory, Ron Lubin
VFX & Design: The Mill
VFX Producer: Jordan Sharon
2D Lead Artist: Ben Smith
3D Lead Artists: David Lawson, Jacob Bergman
2D Artist: Becky Porter
3D Artists: Danny Yoon, Katie Yancey, Krystal Sae Eua, Fabian Elmers, Bridget Warrington, Tyler Mele, Ed Boldero, Robert Chapman, Milton Ramirez, Blake Guest, Juan Zavala, Jason Jansky
Smoke: Tim Robbins
Production Coordinator: Jacqueline Sand, Kris Drenzek