The team, alongside David Yurman, set out to display an enchanted paper world, influenced by Calvin Nicholl's paper creatures, to showcase the elegance of their holiday collection. "We quickly landed on the idea of building a hidden world of paper, with the final reveal taking place within a David Yurman storefront vitrine.” Comments Schaeffer, “If you were able to see inside the holiday window display and look all around, you’d see an infinite paper world of our imagination".
The Mill's VFX team carefully planned which aspects of the spot would be better shot practically and others achieved seamlessly in CG. In order to have control over the look and placement of the falling snow and other natural elements, the team worked with The Makerie to create CG versions of their paper cutouts. From there, the animation team found a perfect balance of movement for each creature, seamlessly blending CG and paper elements to give the spot character and depth. Schaeffer continues, "We struck a fine balance with the animation of our paper animals. It was integral to retain the material properties of paper, whilst provide motion big enough for the camera to notice. The aim was to provide character depth, without exaggerating movement.”
Through close collaboration with David Yurman and their team, we were able to constantly bounce ideas back and forth throughout the whole creative process in order to flawlessly produce this beautiful film. Schaeffer comments, "They were very open to our interpretation of their holiday campaign in motion". Before the film was seen through fruition, the team was able to use the holiday gift guide as a baseline to foster the story beyond the pages. Our ideas for the campaign were developed simultaneously with David Yurman's concept for the window displays, enabling us to fully collaborate and drive the seamlessness of the campaign across all platforms.
The film was polished with a delicate grade by Mikey Rossiter, who worked to capture the elegance and shine of each of Yurman’s pieces, whilst maintaining the consistency and blend of each CG paper element.