Walkers & Comic Relief | It Feels Good To Share
Client : Black Kite Motion Graphics & 3D : Chroma Studios & Bradley Franklin Post Production : Black Kite Studios Agency : VCCP Created using Adobe CC, Cinema4D, Redshift3D Walkers teamed up with Comic Relief for its 2021 Christmas advert to deliver an important mental wellbeing message. Set to a rendition of 'Winter Wonderland', the advert follows a young man called Larry who attends a festive family gathering. As he nervously arrives at the party, we see he is accompanied by a floating emoji which subconsciously displays how he is really feeling — even when he is all smiles on the outside. From feeing embarrassed to being left out of a conversation, Larry puts on a brave face in different scenarios throughout the advert, yet his emoji depicts how he feels inside. Something many of us can relate to, the ad then sees Larry dash into the kitchen where he finally meets someone who asks him how he really is. Sharing a packet of Walkers crisps, the pair chat together away from the rest of the party. The advert forms part of the brand's work with Comic Relief to raise £2 million for mental wellbeing causes in the UK. Centred around men's mental health, it encourages Brits to 'get talking' this Christmas. Chroma was heavily involved in this project from concept through to delivery. In the early stages of the project, we were going through different rounds of look development to get the right feel for the emoji. We developed a series of expressions which we rigged and animated in After Effects. This meant that we could quickly block out shots using Element3D as a preVis tool to focus on honing the timing of the expressions. Having the expression in AE also allowed us to then generate depth map compositions to be used in Cinema4 for the final 3D. HDRi’s were captured on set and used throughout the 3D pipeline to ensure accurate reflections on the emoji, to help it sit nicely within the scene. We were then tasked with creating the endboard that wraps the sequence up whilst reinforcing the message about the importance of mental health.
