shots Awards 2015: Best Use Of Animation

Following our coverage of the shots Awards 2015 in the last issue, here, in round two, we speak to several more gold winners – including editor Joe Guest, the team behind The Unquiet Film Series and folk from Blink and Psyop – about working with dogs and penguins and what gives their work that gilded glow

Best Use Of Animation: Coca-Cola: Man and Dog

When W+K gave you the script, did you immediately envision how you would approach it?

Todd Mueller and Kylie Matulick [directors, Psyop] We had a very clear idea of how we wanted to approach this film. The story felt very whimsical and earnest so we gravitated towards a more classic animation style.

We wanted a timeless Disney/Miyazaki feeling where the environments are more painterly, have depth, and a lot of atmosphere, but the characters remain flat and graphic. This style would also help us to create a colourful distinction between the mundane human’s POV and the fantastical dog’s POV.

We explored many different dog designs before we locked in on a favourite, but we found our hero guy pretty quickly.

How much freedom was there in terms of the direction and how you interpreted the idea?

This was one of those genuinely collaborative projects. We were all very open and interested in gathering as many ideas and points of view as possible.

We tend to try and get lots of ideas then whittle them down to the best. Having agency partners as open and talented as Hal [Curtis, CD], Jason [Kreher, copywriter], and Nate [Nowinowski, art director], made the process a total pleasure.

The hardest part was realising not all of our fun ideas could make it into the film. We so badly wanted to make this spot longer.

Why did you decide to use the style of animation you did for the spot?

The moment we read the script we wanted a classic hand-animated style. Obviously, we love 3D animation but the story was just so timeless that it seemed to be begging for 2D. We also wanted to make a spot that wasn’t obvious when it was made.  

One of the Awards judges referred to it as “the most beautiful piece of storytelling in the category”. How important is the balance between what you can do with animation and telling the story well?

That’s an incredible compliment! It’s a very visual story that mostly comes through the juxtaposition between the man’s POV and the dog’s.

To us it’s all about the story and the animation has to serve that as much as possible. Luckily, during the dog POV moments, we were able to experiment with the animation a bit more to capture his pure joy at the things around him.

It’s funny though, one of our favourite shots is the opening where the man and dog have a very quiet, unspoken exchange. It’s totally understated but you understand everything they’re thinking.

What was the most difficult part of making Man And Dog?

The dog design was a challenge because everyone has their own favourite version of man’s best friend. We developed many versions but found ourselves always returning to the scruffy mutt that’s in the spot.