The thrilling part of being in the TVC space within animation is the opportunity that it provides in terms of exploring creative ideas, collaboration with creative agencies and the instant recognition and audience feedback that one gets. This, especially for studios that have the capability of pushing the envelope in terms of style and impactful communication.
The new 3D animated stick figure TVC for Levis Slim Jeans created by Mumbai based Famous Animation studios for JWT has been getting a lot of Awards and Accolades for its makers.The film has gotten recognition at the Asia Pacific Adfest in Bangkok, struck gold at the ABBYs (Mumbai, india) and at the AAAI (all India), and is a D&AD finalist and most probably will have picked up a couple more trophies even as we post this news!
Speaking to Animation ‘xpress Famous Animation Studios Head E Suresh commented,”It is always wonderful to recieve Awards and appreciation for one’s hardwork. Also personally the reward for us has been the endless stream of calls and messages from friends, our peers in the industry and from our clients”
The TVC evolved when JWT approached Famous with a concept based on the Levis Slim Jeans print campaign. The campaign featured stick figure line drawings in place of models or even the product itself.
“A film extension was a classic animation piece begging to be made” remarked Famous Studios Marketing head Thomas Jacob, saying, “We had jointly brainstormed on the story with Senthil and his team from JWT and arrived at the premise for the film. The print campaign set the style to start the film but we had to modify a lot in terms of style to get the film moving in the desired direction we wanted”
The premise of the the bold, radical TVC is a conflict/interaction in the form of a high speed chase between a stalker and his victim with a surprising climax. The edgy chase takes place through a modern city that could be anywhere in the world.
Keeping in line with Levis Slim Jeans, the brand that the communication was created for, the world the story takes place in is the slim world itself where everything is formed out of thin lines just like its principal characters.
“We created the characters and the environment in 3D, keeping the same look. The initial idea was to use flash animation but we felt that would not have given the desired result, so we opted for 3D animation. This decision turned the project into a mammoth one where we had to virtually build a modern city in CG and then style it or retain the basic elements for the identity of the spaces which had a significant role to play in the due course of the film” remarked Suresh.
On being asked as to what was the biggest challenge on the TVC, Suresh replied,”A big challenge was to get the emotion/expressions from the characters that are basically formed out of lines. Since they don’t have a face the body language study became extremely important to convey the desired expressions/actions”
“The story itself had such a simple structure with strong twists in terms of plots and situations, we had to do a precision balancing act to get the story out along with ‘extreme styling’ (matching upto the Levi’s international standards) with both having complimenting roles than conflicting ones” he added.
“The Levis film actually opens up so much possibilities within the 3D animation genre, which otherwise many in our country write off as ‘plasticy/synthetic/dead’ looking. My advice to all decision makers who take a call on which medium to go for especially from creative agencies is that all media can do its bit in making any program interesting and lively if used correctly and aptly in conjunction with the story you have to tell. There is no such thing as redundancy in terms of a medium. Redundancy occurs when one stops innovating within the parameter of a medium. Be it 2D, clay or 3d the limits/possibilities are unlimited/infinite” concluded Suresh.
