Anyone struggling with present inspiration this Christmas need only consult TBWA London's latest GAME campaign for ideas. Directed by Neil Harris, the campaign sees gift suggestions come from the most unlikely sources: burping babies, playful squirrels and a telekinetic cat. Framestore was tasked with smoothing out all the problems that come from working with the dreaded combination of "children and animals".
The squirrels, cat and babies were filmed over a tight two-day shoot, with the main crew using an Alexa camera and a second unit running Canon 5D to film VFX elements. The squirrel script posed the most complex VFX problem because they had to spell out 'Xbox 360' whilst hanging off a washing line. But only one could be shot at a time to prevent them fighting. Plus, two types of washing line had to be used to deliver two types of 'performances': a solid line that the squirrel could walk on top of and a rope line so that it could hang beneath. The final 'XBox 360' is made up from more than 20 different squirrels takes. Similarly, the burping babies scene had to be created from eight different takes. Fortunately, the cat was shot in one take with its mind-control over the fridge magnet letters being created by building a model of the fridge door, laying it flat and using magnets underneath to move the letters above. This was then tidied up in post by Avtar and his team.