'Tree Tale' shows how easy it is to spread holiday cheer in the spirit of giving. To bring the characters and scenery in the spot to life, the team used real paper elements to help create the animation and mimicked a pop-up book format.
Tan, Proctor and 3D lead artist David Lawson spoke to us about the incredibly hands-on nature of the project.
Proctor 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 Lawson. "We studied various origami techniques to achieve just the right look."
Tan 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, one of the girls is inspired by Joan from Mad Men."
Watch the companion spot, "A Million Stories", here.
Agency: LatinWorks
Producer: Elizabeth Spiva
Additional: 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
Executive Producer: Kim Wildenburg
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 Coordinators: Jacqueline Sand, Kris Drenzek