O2 'Christmas with Love'

Framestore has performed some seasonal miracles to make people walk on air for O2 Ireland’s warm-hearted Christmas campaign. Directed by Smuggler’s Neil Harris for Irish agency, Brando, the ad shows how Christmas’s habit of bringing people together creates an elated feeling of walking of air.

Framestore’s Avtar Bains supervised the shoot over six days. His solution for creating the ‘walking on air’ effect was to shoot people on a Perspex walkway which could then be painted out in post. But to achieve the effect of snow angels, the actors had to be supported on wires and suspended above the ground with the wires being painted out at a later stage. A wide selection of snow footprints were captured to use as elements which were then tracked onto the ground, beneath the actors. Post production was also used to add extra seasonal touches like additional falling snow and cold breaths.

Despite being shot in the height of summer, the set was snowed-up to the max. Being a limited space, the set only had room for two houses. So all the other houses, lamp posts and trees were set extensions that were created and tracked on in post. The opening shot was based on a scale model shoot, with live action people walking in the street. The bay came from an additional effects shoot on location in Dublin.

To create that quintessential but paradoxical Christmassy feel of ‘cold but warm’, the film was transferred with two grades; one for the cold outside feel and the other for a warm glow coming from people’s houses. These were then combined in the final edit.