AMICollective makes Minute Maid commercial for BBH Shangai

Adverts in modern marketing are increasingly turning to more and more advanced visual effects in creating entertaining scenarios for viewers and customers. This is exemplified in the new Minute Maid ad for China that the Shangai based agency BBH commissioned AMICollective to create, who in turn commissioned Luma Animation, to assist with the 3D aspects of the commercial.
“As this was the first substantial procurement by our agents Bernstein and Adruilli out of their newly established Shangai office, we knew we needed to pull out all stops to impress. Quite a big animation team was required to complete the job within a tight deadline. As Illustrators, we had already developed the and the stylistic treatment developed at this stage, won us the pitch against established international animation directors. What we needed was 3D specialists to partner us to glory. We were well acquainted with the high standard of 3D animation Luma are known for and they were an automatic choice as our creative partner. We involved them from the very beginning of the production. We provided a storyboard and needed an animatic to assist with the direction of the live action shoot in Hong Kong. Out of a number of challenges we faced, I’d say the biggest was to translate the look of the iconic Minute Maid burst into motion,” says Christiaan Venter, Director for AMICOllective.
“Towards the end of 2010, Ami Collective pitched and won a board for Minute Maid China requiring a fair amount of computer graphic elements combined with shot footage. The main focus of this commercial would be the liquid simulations of mouth-watering oranges and juice. Luma emerged as the preferred animation studio and we, together with director Christian Venter got stuck into the pre production planning and subsequent animatic mid-January. The shoot was planned for early February in Hong Kong, with the final preproduction at BBH in Shanghai. Myself and VFX Supervisor Erik Kruger went along to address any technical requirements,” says Gerhard Painter, Creative director for Luma.
Venter continues “Luma impressed everyone with the early work in progress render of the liquid burst. We all knew things would run smoothly after that. They were very accommodating towards the client’s backwards-and-forwards on the creative and proved to excel under pressure. I admired the skillful team’s willingness to keep pushing the extra mile until the very last minute.”
“We had a great Production team setting up in Hong Kong and armed with our animatic we were able to find fast solutions to any issues we encountered. We had numerous delays before we had the eventual shoot and even then, we shot late into the night. Meanwhile, back at Luma, we were busy crafting the main liquid explosion and doing final tweaks on all the elements we’ve created. When we got the graded selects from China, we created 3D scenes for each shot and started on final animation,” says Painter.
“With more and more agencies going the animation or a mix of live action and animation route and the speed with which digital work can be sent around the world, we’re seeing a lot more local work appearing in overseas productions, something that we at Luma are excited to see happening,” concludes Painter.
ENDS