Into the Library with Todd + Kylie

Coca-Cola - Happiness Factory

Todd> The agency and client had been kicking this script around for over a year, trying to pull it off as a live action piece. A lot of A-list directors were gunning for it, but they weren't able to sell their treatments, and as a last stab, Wieden came to us. It was a Thursday and we had until Monday to send our pitch.

Kylie> So we scrambled and worked three days without sleep on this pitch. We sent it Monday, and were on a plane to Amsterdam by Wednesday to start making the job.  

Todd> We knew they’d not been able to make it as fanciful, big and happy as they wanted to with live action. The script was simple: a guy goes up to a Coke machine, puts a coin in, magic happens, happiness happens, and then the bottle comes out. We instinctively knew it needed to be more than what you could do with live action. What's the most ridiculously happy thing we could come up with? We abandoned all confines of reality. We referenced these really hyper realistic, cheesy fantasy aspirational paintings, landscape paintings of perfect godlike people with things like quadruple waterfalls, and virgins swimming in pristine ponds. There was no salt in the mix, it’s sugar, sugar, sugar, taken to the nth degree. 

We started really throwing shit against the wall and drawing and doodling. In terms of pressure, this was such a drag race that there was almost a freedom to it. We didn't have any time to hedge any bet, we were all in on weirdness and inventiveness. 

Kylie> Importantly, it wasn't just arbitrary weirdness. I think that's why it resonated. It was weird and wacky, but each moment meant something. This was a really good opportunity for our studio at the time. It was the early days of Psyop and a great opportunity to show what we could do, and we were able to build a team and really test our own capabilities. We presented an idea that we would have loved to have made, but then we had to work out how or if we could even do it because we'd never ever created anything like this before, especially to this level of finesse and detail and level of CG. There was a lot of finger crossing, but it was a wonderful storm of creativity and everyone was in it, 100% heart and soul. 

Todd> One final anecdote on that: about a year later, we were at the Wieden+Kennedy Founders' Day. Dan Wieden came over to me and said, 'you ruined it for us! We've always told clients that you simply cannot have the product in-frame for the entire spot and make an interesting commercial.'  

Twinings - Sea

Kylie> This is a very sensitive story of a woman finding herself using the metaphor of being in stormy seas, and then finding a place of calm within yourself. We developed this very painterly style that I think was really able to capture the sensitivity of that story. The client had never done animation before, so it was new and kind of scary territory for them. But in the process of animation, you can often be a lot more whimsical and fanciful, so we took that opportunity with this film. 

It was also a very technical spot for us because we created it in 3D but wanted it to be painterly. It's hard to create that look in CG without it looking a little plastic. We ended up developing some interesting technology to create that look, but additionally we ended up having to paint every frame of the film, actually going in and taking each frame and adding painterly brushstrokes and stuff like that. There was a lot of love internally, and it was very much a strong team effort. 

Coca-Cola - Heist

Todd> One of the more memorable things about this was shooting in New Zealand right after Lord of the Rings had wrapped, and we got to work with a bunch of Peter Jackson's team. From a fantasy, sci-fi geek point of view, I was thrilled. In a way this is almost exactly in between 'Happiness Factory' and Twinings, where we wanted it to be more poetic and a little less hard hitting and frantic than 'Happiness Factory'. It's a totally different style with the live action CG hybrid and was a fun story to tell, coming up with clever ways for how these insects could literally steal the Coke and thinking about the physics of things like how many grasshoppers it would take to push the bottle down a hill. We went scouting through New Zealand for the perfect waterfall. It was a really beautiful experience. 

It was also relatively early CG days, so integrating photorealistic-ish insects into live action plates was something technically exciting that we were working on. We don't consider ourselves a visual effects studio, for a number of reasons, and we knew going in that we wanted to give it an aesthetic that was photoreal but still sort of story bookish. We wanted to bring hyperreality and a point of view that's not just purely photorealistic. 

For us, that storybook charm, where there's evidence of the artist's hand, even when it's CG, there's something in that. There's still evidence of the artists who worked on it versus just slavishly trying to make it like reality. 

Kylie> One final thing: we did beat Scorsese for an Emmy with this.  

Oreo - Wonderfilled Bedtime

Todd> We wanted to shoot a really lush, intimate film and feel part of this little girl's life. We went the opposite direction to 'Happiness Factory' and 'Heist' with very simple, stripped down live action with simple, sweet handmade animation. Oftentimes there's an opposing energy with levels of production. The higher production value, the less intimate it is sometimes. 

I think that this spot still feels relevant because there's an authenticity to it, even though it is well produced and looks beautiful. The song is brilliant, the animation is really simple, but together they tell the story. We were also capturing her imagination. It would be easy to go crazy with something like that, but I think the simplicity keeps you in that space versus distracting you. The elements, the graphics, the animation don't distract you from what's happening, it keeps you in the message, visualising her imagination. 

We shot this in our living room, and I think that played into the intimacy as well. I think it made everyone, especially the little girl, feel really comfortable.  

Kylie> I have a personal love for this spot. It was so fun to make. The process of landing on the dog design was a little painful - I mean, everyone has an opinion about a dog right? We designed hundreds of dogs! But it was so lovely creating this juxtaposition of the man's experience and the dog's experience, and bringing that dog's perspective to life. It was a really fun thing to explore. 

I think something that won us the pitch was a series of illustrations we did where we showed what the human and dog saw. One that I think resonated the most was a picture we drew of stinky sneakers, and then those same sneakers wrapped with bacon, which was the dog's vision. The visual play that we could create with that juxtaposition was where we saw the potential for this.

Todd> We came up with so many different ideas of what we see and what dogs see. We had more than we needed and we liked all of them, so we were working with the agency and the client to choose and all everyone cared about was the dog! But we had to make the story. We knew the narrative had to start with a small thing, and then grow to wild places, but everyone cared about what the dog looked like! 

Kylie> We also wanted to make it feel like classic Disney, and it definitely leaned towards that style of animation. We worked with Duncan Studios, who were connected to that whole world, so it felt it had a real authenticity to the way the dog moved. 

Todd> I think this was just at the beginning of the resurgence of 2D animation. Everything went madly 3D, especially after 'Happiness Factory', there was a huge explosion of crazy 3D animation stuff, and that lasted for years. When this spot happened, it was part of a bit of a new guard of 2D animated commercials, at least in the States anyway. Nowadays, 2D is almost a bigger thing than 3D.  

Aldi - Kevin the Carrot 

Kylie> This was the silliest pitch: this carrot that wanted to meet Santa. As a general premise for an idea, it's pretty silly, but we immediately engaged because of that. It was an opportunity to really tell an emotional story about a funny little carrot. 

Todd> And keeping away from it feeling like VeggieTales, while not being cheesy, and at the same time doing a lot of heavy lifting, selling groceries! 

Kylie> The challenge of the food was an interesting element but luckily, we were able to pull out a really lovely story of this carrot crossing a vast valley of food, and the perils of crossing the Christmas table to meet Santa. And I don't know what it was, but it touched the hearts of people. We didn't expect anything like it has turned into, obviously. That first year Aldi was selling a little Kevin toy in stores, and they had something like 10,000 - and there was a line out the store. That's when it struck us. 

Todd> Our brains are hardwired for story - that's how we receive information. If you can wrap information up into a narrative, you're going to remember it. If you can make that story good, you're going to remember it even better. We really believe that, and put a lot of effort into that. One of the reasons we like telling stories is that it's really effective. You just need to invest in it, believe in it, and do it well.  

Kylie> We also have a great relationship with the agency [McCann Manchester]. The creative collaboration on Aldi each year is really fun, we have a lot of fun collaborating and there's a lot of mutual respect. We pretty much have been working with the same team for the past seven years, so every time we shoot, everyone knows each other... 

Todd> ... everyone's psyched to work on it... 

Kylie> ... and everyone knows what they have to do. There's a lot of trust, and all that kind of stuff is felt in the final pieces, I think. 

Coca-Cola - Mural 

Todd> This was another really competitive pitch. I can't remember who the players were, but it was a juicy job. When jobs like this come up, everyone scrambles and puts their best foot forward. Again, we leaned on story more than technique. One of the aspects we thought about a lot was the different types of locomotion the graffiti characters could have, such as the guy that's on paper that peels off the wall, to the octopus, and all the different styles of the graffiti and how they move across town trying to get to the to their prize. 

Kylie> It was our first collaboration with Golden Wolf, too. We actually worked pretty tightly with those guys to conceptualise a lot of the visual gags. 

Todd> It was an amazing shoot. We wanted to make sure that we had all the surfaces feel right, so we did full high res LIDAR scanning of all surfaces, so the graffiti felt really integrated onto the surfaces.  

Travel Oregon - Only Slightly Exaggerated

Kylie> This was one spot that turned into three which is pretty fun, and one of our first collaborations with Sun Creature. 

Todd> We knew Guillaume [Dousse, Sun Creature founder] from when he was in school. Pre-ArtStation days, we came across his work and he actually did some sketches for Coke 'Man and Dog' five years or so previously. When we got this opportunity, we went directly to him and his team. 

Kylie> There's so much detail. We really wanted to make sure that it was absolutely lush, where you just wanted to dive into every moment visually. Not only do the story and the whimsical moments take you somewhere, the visual lushness does too. It was another project where we pitched it and crossed our fingers, hoping we could pull it off. We had a certain level of standard, finish and polish that we really wanted to be able to achieve, but it's really hard to actually do that. You need to have a pool of absolutely amazing artists, you can't fake that stuff. 

There were definitely some scary moments where we were still not seeing that level of finish, but the layering takes time. You've got to do the outline and the fill, and then you start adding detail and more detail, and that finesse eventually happens but it happens slowly. 

Todd> Unlike 3D animation, where you actually can change the animation a little bit, even once you have it lit and textured. If something's really bothering us, our technical team will moan and groan but it is possible to even at the last moment tweak the animation just a little bit. With 2D, you just can't. You can't go back at all. It's built on all the hand work that's been done, and you can't just go back and change the way a foot moves or an eye blinks. It's a very intense process.

Check out the second spot in this series, 'Slightly More Exaggerated', here.

Coke - A Coke Is a Coke

Kylie> This was the first actual piece with Sun Creature, but it got cancelled because of the controversy around Trump being elected. It was based on a famous Warhol quote about Coke being something enjoyed by everyone, and it mentions how 'presidents drink Coke'. It got put on hold, but they used it for the Super Bowl two years later. 

It was a really fun piece to make, but really challenging because it's so simple. There's a visual simplicity and restriction to it, the colour palette is really simple, the line quality and general aesthetic is very clean and simple. It has a lovely hand-drawn quality, but there's not a lot of distraction. Sometimes those kinds of films are even more difficult to make, because everything that's on the screen needs to be there for a reason. You're not hiding behind lighting quality and fireworks, so there was a much stronger emphasis on design and character design. That really took a while. There were certain scenes that were really hard to design and took quite a few iterations to make them work beautifully. Such as the moment of the people sitting on the dock and the two hands coming together took probably six or seven design iterations to get those bodies and the hand movement right so that it looked really good. It was challenging but I really loved it. 

Absolut - It’s in Our Spirit

Kylie> We had to tell four different stories in one film, and tie them together. The idea of breaking out of the screen was a complex idea. Bringing together these four different styles of animation, and creating a seamless piece was actually really fun but very involved. The shoot was tough too. Because of covid, we had two people in America, another in Asia and the musician in England, and we had to shoot them all separately and make them feel like they were in the same space. For the smashing glass we shot using candy glass and then VFX. It's always fun shooting visual effects like that and geeking out on things like super slow motion. It was definitely a complex job, and it took a good six months.