How Nexus’ Flamingos Brought Hun Culture to Christmas for Very
“There’s good, and there’s Very good,” reads Very, British online retailer’s, new brand strategy tagline. Launched alongside Very’s Christmas campaign for this year, the brand revitalisation was made possible with the help of ad agency The Gate and Nexus Studios on the production side.
The film itself is a play on ‘hun culture’, known amongst British audiences (mostly women and gay men) as self-ironically celebrating national soap actors, reality TV icons and camp-infused female pop stars. At the start of the spot we observe a grim, snowy cityscape, loosely based on Liverpool, inhabited by the humble inner-city pigeons. That is, until the grey sky tears apart to make way for none other than the huns themselves - or the Very pink flamingos.
The flamboyant group then goes on to sprinkle glitter all over pigeon city and practically save Christmas from the dull and mundane. And, the Very gifts they bear help the inhabitants of the city decorate their homes just in time for the holiday (of course finished beautifully with sparkling Christmas jumpers).
LBB’s Zoe Antonov spoke to Nexus Studios’ director Paloma Baeza and CG Lead Florian Caspar about the complicated animation work on the beautifully-crafted campaign and all the nifty details that went into creating the pink sparkly hun world.
LBB> What was the brief for this campaign and what were the initial ideas you had when working on it?
Paloma> We were asked to create three brand new, larger-than-life characters with some very specific traits - they were flamingos, and they were based on ‘hun culture’. They were the Very ‘Flami-gos’.
My initial ideas were that we needed to lean into the boldness of the concept - to draw on Hun culture references and humour. These characters needed to be super positive and make you smile right away.
LBB> How did the tagline ‘Let’s Make It Sparkle’ inform your creative decisions on the film?
Paloma> The tagline captures the heart of what we needed to deliver - a magical, feel-good, warm visual feast. In addition to the characters, we needed to create the bird world that they live in - where Very is bringing the pink into an initially grey city.
LBB> What was the research that became the stepping stone for the project and gave way to the creative direction? How did you underline it through the approach in the film?
Paloma> Hun culture was the foundation in terms of the aesthetic of interiors and character design for our hero flamingos. In terms of the exteriors and skies, I wanted to make sure we captured the magic of sunlight through clouds while putting our pink twist on warm light transforming a grey landscape. This involved looking at lots of captivating sky images which featured ‘god rays’ breaking through.
LBB> Tell me more about the character development of all the different animals in the film.
Paloma> We worked closely with brilliant character designer Felicie Haymoz who did the initial drawings of our characters. They evolved more with every round of adjustments until they felt true to the look and vibe we needed to capture. The hairstyles of our two lead female flamingos were probably what involved the most discussion and changes! Overall we were aiming to make each pigeon and flamingo distinctive and relatable. These drawings then went through a lengthy process of development into their 3D model shapes and were eventually groomed with all their soft feathers.
LBB> The names are great too - Kerry, Terry and Cherry. Who came up with these? What do you think the value of mascots is when it comes to relatability around the holiday period?
Paloma> The agency, The Gate gave us these names - all a twist on Very! Identifiable mascots are fun, and somehow comforting, even nostalgic. If you get it right, an audience can look forward to seeing where they might end up next.
LBB> Tell me more about the colour choices and the overall colour scheme of the film.
Paloma> Well, it definitely needed to be pink! Specifically, the Very delivery flamingoes are bringing the pink into a grey cityscape. So making sure that we captured the contrast was important. And then we had many shades and variations of pink - magical pink light in the sky, pink glitter shining from gift boxes, the hot pink of the Very logo… and of course, making sure that our pink flamingos still stood out in all their fabulousness.
LBB> When creating the locations in the animation, where did you get your inspiration from and are they replicas of real places?
Paloma> Our main inspiration was Liverpool. They’re not full replicas but heavily inspired by it. Houses and streets and details are recognizable. The most specific is the view over the city where we can see the Liver Building - except we have a pigeon sculpted on top!
LBB> Tell me about animating the decoration in the houses of the flamingos - what details did you want to make sure not to skip?
Paloma> Many items and furniture were taken directly from the Very website. We then populated the houses with homey lived-in details that were fun twists in our flamingo/pigeon world. So, picture frames of our bird families on holiday, a flamingo fairy on the tree - and if you look closely, the tea mugs are decorated with shrimp motifs.
LBB> What was the biggest challenge on the project and likewise, what was the most fun part to work on?
Paloma> We had to deliver a complex set of requirements on a very tight schedule, all covered in feathers. Creating feathers is famously difficult. The team had to be super dedicated and committed. Overall it was great fun to create such a warm, positive universe, with great characters and magical elements. Being able to design new, memorable individuals is a gift, so that’s definitely one of my highlights.
Florian> Creating hairy characters is well known in the industry as difficult, creating feathery characters is even harder, every feather being a hairy and unique object on its own.
Our characters also needed to be able to use their wings and feathers as hands and fingers, so we had to put extra thought into how to define those feathers so they could be animated exactly the way we wanted.
Most 3D software isn’t equipped with efficient solutions to large amounts of feathers, so it was important for us to use the right tool for the right job and build bridges between different software.
Alongside creating a large amount of feathers, we also had the extra complexity of having many birds per shot against detailed backgrounds, to achieve the results we needed we had to use a hybrid of Maya and Houdini, building bridges to transfer files between programs and develop bespoke automated tools to handle this amount of data. This helped support the artists to get through such a large volume of work.
In the end, seeing those beautiful birds come to life was incredibly rewarding. It’s a joy to create something so heartwarming!
