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AGENCY DDB Chicago
CREATIVE DIRECTOR Nancy Jordan
CREATIVES Carol Hillinger, Tim Nichols
AGENCY PRODUCER Mark Olson
PRODUCTION COMPANY Framestore
DIRECTORS Murray Butler & David Mellor
FLAME LEAD Tom Leckie
CG LEAD David Mellor
ANIMATION Shayne Ryan, Kevin Rooney, Jim Hundertmark
LIGHTING Irene Kim, Christina Lum, Jon Parker
EXECUTIVE PRODUCER James Razzall
Framestore's Murray Butler and David Mellor take the director's chair for the latest McDonalds commercial, Lemon Aid.
An angry talking lemon is used to promote the new Frozen Strawberry Lemonade. The goal was to make the lemon look real in texture and movement as well as creating a believable character. Appropriately, Steve Schirripa of Sopranos fame was cast as the voice talent. The voice record was filmed to help translate a lot of his facial expressions and mannerisms to the character.
'The biggest challenge was finding a balance between readable lip-sync and retaining the qualities of lemon skin', said Mellor. 'Lemon skin is quite a tough resistant material so we wanted to feel this in the way he talked. We tried several techniques but ultimately relied on the hand animation skills to get this across.'
'It was a great opportunity to work with such an experienced actor as Steve Schirripa. His performance inspired us to characterize our lemon into something tangible and not over animated.' said Butler.