Brief
To bring nature into an urban landscape like never before
Approach
Craft tens of thousands of CG apples to travel through streets and evolve into whimsical forms taking care to ensure they remained realistic and tangible while staying true to the abstract, inventive concepts within the narrative.
Impact
A new way to engage with Strongbow apple cider that got people talking on an international level.
The spot follows Monsieur Plant and Mary Mattingly, real-life concept artists and stars of the campaign, as they live out their dream to take back the city with a stunning outpouring of nature. The success of the visuals relied on the creative efforts on set during the six-day shoot.
The overall apple sequence was technically complex, particularly when it came to creating the larger-than-life “apple cat.” One of the VFX team’s primary challenges was to animate its figure without the CG apples ever intersecting. The Mill’s VFX Supervisor and 3D Lead Artist David Lawson explains, “We created an algorithm where all of the apples moved under the motion of the cat. In order for the looseness and stretching of the skin to work, we had to ensure the apples moved with each other rather than overlapping. Otherwise, we’d be left with apple sauce.”
When we first got the brief for the ‘apple river,’ we couldn’t find any existing references that reflected that kind of effect, practically or otherwise. That was exciting for us; it provided a creative opportunity.
Becky Porter, VFX Supervisor and 2D Lead Artist at The Mill
