Animated Origami Bring Finance to Life

In March 2013, Australia's 303Lowe contacted Fin about an exciting series of scripts for their client – Challenger Limited.  The trio of 30 second scripts humanise the often dry world of financial products by turning each spot into an allegorical story set in a world of stop motion animated origami.  

 

The agency and client were in no doubt that the look they were after was that of hand-crafted paper animation.  But shooting stop motion is a very labour intensive process, which offers little in the way of flexibility after the shoot.  It suited everyone involved to make use of the tremendous flexibility that a CGI approach can bring, but it was only after an exhaustive series of test renders that Fin demonstrated that the densely textured appeal of a real world shoot could be maintained in a CGI execution.

 

Starting with pencil sketches and real folded paper, every leaf, tree, shirt and character was constructed authentically in a style that was firmly planted in the physical, everyday world.  Sets were constructed and shots lensed keeping in mind the numerous restrictions that would constrain a real-world origami shoot.  In the final rendered images, light passes through translucent sheets of newspaper just as it would in real life and the world appears in narrow focus as though filmed through a 1970s era anamorphic lens.

 

At the end of the project, Fin's creative team could look back with satisfaction at a trio of spots that truly reaped the rewards of having a supportive client.  In being willing to push the imagery unusually far into a palette normally reserved for Tim Burton's latest offering, Challenger have walked away with some work that should stand out in a crowded commercial break. 

 

Client: Challenger
Product: Annuities 
Titles: Balloon, Mountain and Tree
Duration: 30sec
Agency: 303 Lowe
Production: Fin Design + Effects

CHALLENGER
General Manager Corporate Marketing&Communications: STUART BARTON
General Manager Marketing Strategy&Services: AMANDA IRVING
Brand Campaign Manager: LISA TRAN

303LOWE EXECUTIVE CREATIVE DIRECTOR:Richard Morgan
ART DIRECTION: Chris McMullen &Veronica Copestake 
COPYWRITERS:Veronica Copestake & Sean Larkin 
PRODUCER: Sean Ascroft STRATEGIC PLANNING Jon McKie BUSINESS MANAGEMENT: Karen Russell
MEDIA: Inger Christenson, Steph O'Donnell, Sophie Hohnen & Rocky Vu

FIN DESIGN+EFFECTS
DIRECTORS: Adrian Lawrence & Stuart White 
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Stuart White ART DIRECTION Adrian Lawrence CONCEPT ART: Adrian Lawrence & Tim Streets
3D SUPERVISOR: Stuart White
3D MODELLING&TEXTURING: Tim Streets & Colin Ware
3D RIGGING: Shane Brouwer&Gerard van omen Kloeke 
3D LIGHTING: Bastian Konradt 3D ANIMATION Maurice Giacomini FLAME COMPOSITING: Richard Betts
EXECUTIVE PRODUCER: Billy Becket

MUSIC: Nylon Studios