Nexus Production Studios

I decided I really wanted to look into 3d CG animation used in commercials and as infomercials.

The advert above is two minutes of a ridiculous narrative. I still can't get my head around the fact that you feel sorry for all these characters who look like weird off coloured potatoes running round a city and then the red herring twist is just something you would never ever expect. I think for this reason, the narrative is just incredible and if I was marking it out of ten I would give it an eleven. The fact that opening scene really gets you to resonate with the little builder potato, because you know he's just doing what we do, working for a better future and drinking till it comes. I think the pauses are perfectly timed to draw out his sickness without the viewer getting bored.

Secondly I would like to discuss the actual animation in this advert, because I think technically, there is a lot going on. They've created almost a whole city, for barely any air time. Which I struggle to understand, until I examined it in closer detail. The production company have actually been insanely clever here, a lot of the scenes where theres lots of people have quite a lot of it repeated, for example the one where it has people passing in a square format, that square is shrunk and moved further away to give the impression of more people. And when it's the scene on the bus, it's in such closed quarters, it feels cramped without having a lot of characters on the screen so therefore there is less animating to do. This is repeated several time by have low angled shots pointing up to the focal character in close affinity so less has to be put in. And then when there's big shots there's lots of characters repeating the same action to look busier. I don't think it makes this animation less of anything, it's very commendable, because obviously when there's a client involved there's a timescale and a budget and the reason I chose to look at Nexus is because this is what they're good at, I think there shorts for entertainment aren't as effective as pieces of entertainment, but all their commercial work is really effective. But this is just my personal opinion.

Another thing I really really like about this piece regarding it's visual aesthetics is the way the creators have handled the lighting. The city is made to feel dank and dark with a very noir style lighting ephemera. Which I think adds to the mystery of the twist at the end because it subtley makes it feel like a detective show and like you want to work out what's wrong with the potato characters so I think it taps into your subconscious and I really like that feeling that it can be done through effective lighting. I think you can't work it out though because it's so short and so fast paced you don't actually have time to think about it properly and I think that's why it's so successful, that and it plays on your emotions.




As far as looking at 3D CG animations for commercials go I think although it's chosen a lot of the time because there's cheats in way you can do things faster therefor you can give the client a cheaper quote than a studio that would do it traditionally, I think sometimes they don't work, in a way that is as effective, therefore they have the potential to be forgettable, but sometimes that's okay if a company is prepared to spend a lot in get it out there over and over so it's hammered into your brain.

This particular Talk Talk advert isn't a favourite of mine, I think it got a great narrative and some great characters and had potential to be a great advert but I think it let itself down through the animation of the characters. To me the characters aren't brought to life very well. They seem quite wooden. I know that they are meant to be characters that have come to life, but I feel like the animators probably need more time to play with them, I just don't feel like I can believe the epic struggle of Gnome and the terrible fall that the robot and rabbit slippers have. I put this down to the acting of the characters. Which again emphasises the importance of the reference footage and work. It's not that I don't feel that key poses and everything is not fitting to the animation, but that facial animation needs more work. I feel like the eyes never really have a chance to connect with the viewer so you can't emphasise as well with the characters and therefore it becomes a more forgettable advert.

There are a lot of other adverts out there that are good and bad examples of 3DCG adverts I just chose this company because I have never looked into them before and they had a good example of a good and bad 3D CG advert. I think what I really fell in love with, was one of there shorts which was a stop motion.



This short animation took four weeks to make and is a direct commentary on the issues with sustainable farming.

What I think it proves is that traditional methods of commercials and infomercials, can be just as visually pleasing and effective. What makes this particular informercial successful is how smooth and continuous the flow of the narrative is and how successfully the narration plays on the humans emotions for the loves of creatures, big and small and how things should be treated fairly. I think the simplistic models don't detract from this and therefore increase the effectiveness of the message. I feel like this is a pretty strong subject so it might of been as effective in CG animation but I think for me there is a lot of resonance in having the working model background that turns and moves and so on, because there's so much love and care that's gone into it I think people are more likely to appreciate it. Even those of an older age who don't always appreciate CG animation.

Nexus productions have some more great work on there vimeo if you liked these I strongly recommend you check them out, they've even had some oscar nominated work.

https://vimeo.com/nexusproductions

http://www.nexusproductions.com/