Welcome to a truly magical Christmas fairy tale!

Thought up entirely by children, this atypical campaign for the festive season tells the story of a lonely, misunderstood ghost. The mixed media approach was a great brief for the Glassworks creative studio team, who took the opportunity to bring to life all the characters and environments as envisioned by the children.

The campaign, created by agency Wirz for Swiss supermarket chain Migros, sheds conventional Christmas cliches to present an uplifting ode to childlike imagination. While slightly illogical for adult brains, this original approach allowed our creative team to design and craft a wide range of characters: a cel animated monster, a super-smart CGI brain, dancing bread, talkative fruits, and, to finish off, a dinosaur band.

A key part of the VFX work was the heavy compositing required to make the ghost appear light, expressive and incorporeal. 2D Lead and VFX supervisor, Kyle Obley, worked on set with director Rogier Hesp and costume designer Pola Gomółka to ensure that the ghost – played by a mime artist riding a hoverboard – would later look as desired. After erasing the actor’s legs and cleaning up the costume in post-production, our team had to work on the detail, ensuring that the sheet would move as loosely as if there had never been any legs. The actor’s physical performance, plus the 2D facial animation of eyes, eyebrows and mouth were designed to make the ghost as expressive as possible.

Wrapped in Jonny Thorpe’s colour grade, this unconventional Christmas story allowed our team to reach across all disciplines – from the already mentioned CGI, 2D animation and compositing, to forced perspective, matte painting and the extra magical compositing of rainbows, fireworks and snow.