Soccer, M&M's, Vienna Humor and CINEMA 4D
In Austria they also speak German and even the climate is similar to Germany's - yet so much else is different there.
All you have to do is flip on the television and right away you will see that the Austrians like to create television ads with their very own flair for many products, including adverts for the beloved chocolate candies M&M's. Of course Red and Yellow still star in the ads but one campaign co-stared former soccer pro Toni Polster. Toni, who three times led FK Austria Wien to the championships, was suddenly faced with his biggest challenge yet: teaching Red and Yellow how to handle a soccer ball - in this case a special edition M&M's ball.
This spot, which was created for the agency PKP BBDO, was also a challenge for the creative team at Cybertime. Producer Raffael Leb and his team were given the job of letting the real Toni Polster kick a soccer ball around with the virtual characters Red and Yellow. The scene shows all three passing the ball around - until the clumsy Yellow kicks the ball into the camera and breaks it. Of course, no real cameras were broken in the making of this spot!
In contrast to Yellow's disastrous performance, CINEMA 4D's performance during production was flawless. A 3D storyboard was used to define the spot's layout and timing. This information was then used when filming Toni's movements, which were choreographed in coordination with the animatics. Reference photos were made during filming that were used by the team of 3D artists to adapt lighting and color properties in CINEMA 4D.
CINEMA 4D was then used to model, texture and rig Red and Yellow for the upcoming animations. The rigs gave the animators all the flexibility they needed to create ideal movements. It goes without saying that effects such as squash-and-stretch and jiggle were used when animating cartoon characters like Red and Yellow. This was handled beautifully by CINEMA 4D's MOCCA 3.
Real-world footage and the rendered sequences were then combined in post-production and the final spot is a convincing combination of soccer legend Toni Polster kicking the M&M's soccer ball around with Red and Yellow.
Credits
cybertime
PKP BBDO Werbeagentur GmbH
Mars