Happy Hour Ent. teamed with advertising agency Publicis Mid-America to produce four 15-second regional spots for Indianapolis-based Simon Mall.
The commercials involve a paper gift certificate that folds and transforms itself into a shirt, a purse, a nutcracker and a rocking horse. charged with creating the CG animation and developing the story, Happy Hour was faced the challenge of maintaining a photoreal quality in order to match the clean and simple design of Simon Mall’s current print campaign.
"The concept for the spots was very lyrical and sound driven," says Tracy Prescott-MacGregor, Happy Hour’s Creative Director on the project. "Since the spots had no dialog, we used animation to enhance that tempo and really propel the storyline."
Happy Hour’s team used LightWave to model and surface the characters, and Shadow Designer to match the lighting of the print campaign and give additional depth to the CG sets.
Portland sound and music designer Jamie Haggerty of Stray Voltage was called in to create tracks that both complimented the storyline and motivated the creation of the animation.
Happy Hour Ent. completed the campaign in just six weeks to meet the tight advertising timeline.
Credits:
Agency: Publicis Mid-America
Creative Director: Pam Linsley
Producer: Janice Glassford
Happy Hour Team
Exec. Producer: Erik Vignau
Creative Director: Steve Bailey
Director: Tracy Prescott Macgregor
Lead Artist: Jake Carvey
Technical Director: Richard Foster
Animator: Tom Sorem
Sound Design
Stray Voltage — Jamie Haggerty
