You can watch it online here.I should clarify that the spot was produced by Tandem for Leo Burnett, and is not a SYF production - though SYFs own Tim Drage, and Spider-Man veteran animator Tom Bevan were both involved at various points. And of course I directed it, so I get to write about it on this blog.
The concept for the piece came from Leo Burnett, with the production teams brief being to realise it using stop-motion - or using techniques that look like stop-motion. I must admit, I never thought I would be called upon to animate anything physicaly smaller than a lego man, but coco pops certainly fit that bill (stop-motion mitochondria next I guess). Further to which, the story called for said pops to be in mid-air half the time. For a stop-motion animator, about the only thing that the brief left out, was if the coco pops had to be on fire.
The lazy solution would have been to do the whole thing CG, but making a film using only one technology, is for little babies and Hollywood. Instead, we took the Heath Robinson approach, and decided to tell the story using just about every practical animation technique available - whichever best suited each effect - all the while retaining that desired stop-motion aesthetic.
In the course of the thirty seconds you can see stop-motion, CG, live action, 2D traditional, rotoscoping, replacement model, photosonics, slow-motion and practical effects work, plus some techniques that there aren't even proper names for. For now, I'm not going to spoil the magic by telling you what shot uses what technique - but what I will say is that effects you think were done one way, were almost certainly done another...
