Post Office 'Twins'

ANT FURTHERMORE...
Twins is the latest ant-based spot that Framestore have animated for the Publicis Post Office® campaign. The 40-second spot was directed by Simon and Jon for Blink Productions, and it debuted on terrestrial TV on 1st September.

This is the fifth spot in this ongoing series of humorous animations, and the Framestore team's confidence and sense of fun with the material really shines through in Twins.

The eponymous ant brothers of the title are racing their trucks around a sunny suburban garden. The inevitable collision is quickly followed by the inevitable recriminations, as the two boys carry out a parody of the sort of exchanges that adults indulge in after a fender-bender. As the situation degenerates to blows and taunts, the twins' father calls them in for tea. They race across the lawn, all differences forgotten.

Lead Animator David Hulin and Inferno Artist Jonathan Hairman supervised the shoot, which took place in Palma, Majorca in July 2004. Lighting information was gathered using HDR tools, and the shoot was a smooth one, with only the radio-controlled car sequences requiring multiple takes.

Three weeks of animation and two weeks of 2D work followed. Tricky areas for the Framestore team included getting a believable interaction between the ants and their environment, ensuring that the shadows and reflections of the ants on the cars' bonnets and windows were convincing, and the careful composition of the last shot – with the ants running through the grass, shot from low down and with a very wide lens.

The 3D team worked in Maya, with proprietary plug-ins, and the compositing was achieved in Inferno. The Telecine was created by Steffan Perry.