Sony Bravia Does New York Bunny Hop

Some of the production problems associated with a major TV advertisement for Sony, which is on screen in the UK at the moment, have been revealed.
Directed by Frank Budgen of Gorgeous, the six-camera, two week shoot saw nearly 300 animated rabbits bouncing around New York assisted by over 40 animators.
Due to the scale of the project, summer temperatures and timescales, it would have been impossible for all the models to have been individually made in clay or plasticine. Therefore, Passion Pictures and Gorgeous approached Artem to produce the replacement animation models for the shoot.
The team had been working with Denis Russo and came to Artem armed with small claymation models to use as reference.
The rabbits had to appear as though made of clay, but be practical and consistent.
In total, the Artem team sculpted 45 different models in clay - 21 rabbits in their different positions and sizes (6 inches, 1 foot and 2 feet from nose to tail) as well as a series of splats and blobs.
Over 40 Artem technicians were involved in the mass rabbit replication - turning the workshops into what looked like a technicolor bunny breeding centre.
They were then packed carefully and flown out to New York to take part in the exceedingly ambitious shoot.
The ad also features one giant 30ft rabbit. Shipping him to New York was not practical, so Artem's sister company, Artemdigital, scanned in the model and sent the data stateside to be produced there.
When they were packed off to New York, the technicians though their bunny making days were over, but have subsequently had to produce hundreds more claymation, foam and fibreglass rabbits for the stills campaign, point of sale promotion and PR stunts ranging in size from 6" to 20ft.
The largest of these is doing a grand tour of London to support the campaign.
Artem Supervisor/Designer, Bob Thorne, commented: "We were delighted to get involved with this iconic campaign - especially this incarnation. We do a lot of stop frame animation work, but never anything this big."
(DS)