Dec 3: The Bear and the Hare (remix)
The amount of attention this advert is getting, and the fact that those of us outside the UK have no clue who or what John Lewis is, makes The Bear and the Hare worth reposting here. For some nitty gritty production notes read last month’s Skwigly article about the release.
Two things fascinate me about this advert. One is the utter extravagance of the £7 million campaign, complete with extensive merchandising, the like of which has never been seen for a 2 minute film. This Christmas you can stuff your stocking with Bear and Hare stuffed animals, a companion story book or e-book, a sleep suit, rucksack, alarm clock… I should really stop before I lose my taste for the actual animation itself. All merchandising aside, The Bear and the Hare is really a nice bit of animation, the result of an insane method of production, which is my second point of fascination.
The animal characters were animated on paper by veteran animators with appealing realism (think Ralph Bakshi meets Bambi). Then every single drawing was laser cut, mounted and hand placed in a physical stop-frame set and filmed with motion-control camera moves. The goal was to have almost everything done in-camera, but the technology that made this production possible is just as impressive as the coding depths of the most advanced 3D software. And it has the benefit of being novel, where 3D is the most common form of animation around.
So this begs the question: did they do it this way because the process is as much a part of the story (and marketing) as the story itself? Now that animation is becoming more mainstream, the true magic is not in the animation so much as it is in the difficulty and precision of making the animation. What do you think?
Speaking of difficulty and precision, Creative Review has an excellent article on the pitching and development of the advert.
#AdventAnimation is a daily showcase of holiday themed animation. If you are working on something with a touch of holiday cheer that will be released sometime between 1 December and Christmas Eve, drop me a note and I will put it into consideration.