“Blubber Shudder”: Untold Studios on Virgin Media O2’s ‘Walrus Whizzer’
It started with a highland cow taking the ride of its life on a motorbike. Then, a mountain goat hang glided to new heights. Now, a walrus is whizzing into the sunset on a speedboat to the tune of Billy Ocean’s ‘Suddenly’. It is, of course, the third in the beloved trilogy of Virgin Media O2’s ‘To Better and Beyond’ campaign.
Following on from ‘Highland Rider’ and ‘Goat Glider’, ‘Walrus Whizzer’ sees creative from VCCP once again taken to the next level by photorealistic creature VFX from Untold Studios. The Emmy and BAFTA-winning creative studio worked closely with director Andreas Nilsson to craft the sassy marine mammal star, poring over its short fur, wrinkled blubber, bristly whiskers, and flaring nostrils. An exact digital replica of the speedboat was also developed alongside highly complex water simulations, ensuring the walrus would integrate seamlessly with its live action surroundings.
To delve into the craft, touching on what it takes to bring a walrus to life with stunning realism and plenty of personality, LBB’s Zara Naseer spoke to Seb Cauldwell, CG Supervisor at Untold Studios.
LBB> This is the third time you’ve worked with Virgin Media and VCCP on these animal spots. What’s that creative relationship like?
Seb> We’ve had the pleasure of working with VCCP for this entire campaign series, and they have been so trusting and collaborative throughout the process – a result of repeated great results from the first two spots. The previous ‘Highland Rider’ and ‘Goat Glider’ spots are some of Untold Studios’ most awarded creature projects to date. Along with Andreas’ fresh input, VCCP’s continued creative direction was vital to this project. Both VCCP and Andreas’ ideas of poses, appearance and performance were key in giving the walrus his bold personality.
LBB> What goes into the decision behind which animal should star in each ad? Was the walrus the immediate choice for this one or were there others in the ring?
Seb> The decision was ultimately down to VCCP and Virgin Media. However, with this film being the third in the trilogy everyone wanted to make it extra special, which also meant an extra level of difficulty for us from a VFX standpoint. Wanting to push the boundaries of what’s possible with craft, VCCP initially reached out to us asking, “What’s the hardest character and environment that can be done in VFX?”. We immediately suggested a creature that inhabits water, along with various other options from creatures from all over the world. Eventually VCCP and Virgin Media settled on a walrus.
LBB> When does the research process begin for a project like this, and what does it involve? How did you immerse yourselves into the world of walruses?
Seb> As soon as we knew that we were going to make a walrus we started looking into images of them in their natural habitat. We looked at everything from size to colour, face shapes, and some of walruses’ more unusual features. We took all of these elements and, together with VCCP and Andreas, selected the characteristics that best suited their goals for the character.
The walrus and the boat were developed in tandem. VCCP and Andreas felt that having the walrus as big as possible in relation to the boat would add to the comedy. To stay within the realm of reality, we explored how the size of the boat and walrus would work together for maximum effect. In the early days of pre-production we tested a whole range of boats, walrus poses and walrus sizing scales to see what felt the best.
LBB> Walruses don’t have the most expressive faces – how did you imbue this one with emotion and personality?
Seb> When we first heard that we’re going to be creating a walrus we envisioned this being a huge challenge. In our research we discovered that they actually have an incredible range of motion. They’re able to raise their whiskers, push their eyes out of their sockets and even play the trumpet! This means the opposite issues would apply, when real animals are so expressive it is very easy to fall into anthropomorphism. We worked hard to keep the performance nuanced in order to remain believable.
LBB> How did you identify the level of realism you should aim for?
Seb> Untold has got a fundamental core of photorealistic creature work. We’ve had many successful projects, including the two previous Virgin Media campaigns. Over the years we’ve always found the best creature work is based on reality and we try not to stray too far away from it. We looked at thousands of images and videos of real world walrus references and picked out a selection that were used as key elements to steer the look and feel of the walrus. On top of that we made sure to have as much in camera reference as possible, we shot with a real boat (even when we intended to replace it with a CG boat) and framed it using a giant 3D printed walrus head, which also served as our lighting reference.
LBB> How did you ensure that the CG walrus would blend seamlessly with its surroundings in the final film?
Seb> In pre-production there was a lot of back and forth about whether we should shoot the several shots of the walrus climbing aboard the boat with a real boat or use a full CG boat. In the end we settled on a CG boat. Doing it in camera could have restricted the animation and we felt the displacement the walrus would cause should be driven by the walruses animation, instead of a plate of a boat rocking. This also meant we had a fully photoreal CG boat asset that we could use in the shots where the boat was intended to be in-camera. In order to seamlessly integrate shadows, light bounce and reflections we ended up rendering the boat in every walrus shot and using parts of the CG boat instead of the in-camera boat.
Anytime the walrus was partially submerged, the water was completely replaced with CG water to fully integrate it into the plate. In the opening three shots the water is completely CG.
LBB> What was the biggest challenge you faced on this project, and how did you overcome it?
Seb> The shot of the walrus climbing onto the boat was by far the hardest for a number of reasons.
Firstly, the animation of the boat and the walrus are inherent to one another. The weight of the walrus causes the boat to sink but in turn the buoyancy of the boat affects the movement of the walrus. This chicken-and-egg nature of the movement was our main reason for using a fully CG boat.
Another layer of difficulty was the water factor. Water FX simulations are notoriously tricky to art direct and are reliant on animation that is not only creatively correct but also physically correct too. There’s no real cheating! On top of that the walrus’ fur needed to transition from soaking wet, to partially dry, to later in the film completely dry. We overhauled our fur workflow by developing proprietary tool sets that allowed us to generate fur more efficiently and add dynamic wet maps that drive the wetness of the shading but also which parts of the walrus use a wet fur groom and which use a dry groom.
LBB> Though the animals change between each Virgin Media commercial, what’s the key to making them feel cohesive and consistent?
Seb> Each commercial has had a simple philosophy: animal plus mode of transport equals speed and ease. This gives a great foundation for us to work with. In ‘Highland Rider’ and ‘Goat Glider’ we leant on the creature’s hair blowing in the wind to show speed, whilst simultaneously animating expressions to give the feeling of bliss. However, with ‘Walrus Whizzer’ the short fur meant we couldn't do this, so instead we utilised the walrus’ thick layer of fat wobbling as the boat sped along the open ocean. We referred to it as the ‘blubber shudder’.
LBB> Are there any lessons you learned from the first two instalments that you applied this time around?
Seb> All three of the Virgin Media spots are entirely based around a digital character. We’ve learnt that to get the best from everyone involved it’s really important that everyone holds a similar vision.
In pre-production we worked very closely with Andreas and VCCP to pre-vis the entire film. This started weeks before the camera started rolling. We did an initial animatic to demonstrate a moving version of the storyboards, then again once the shooting location was decided, and finally one more time after the creative and technical discussions on the tech-recce. This meant that going into the shoot everyone had a basis for timing, performance and what was going to be shot.
With this meticulous planning it meant that as we got into post-production the animation was completely blocked out, even before edit lock. This blocking formed a foundation of the animation that we used all the way through to the final picture.
