Summary
Not only is dirt good, but every child has the right to be a child and get dirty, says the Persil washing powder ad Roboboy. ‘A brilliantly understated and well-observed film,’ reckons Barnsley, lead Flame artist at The Mill.
Roboboy, instilled with the characteristic humanity and
discriminating eye of its director Philippe Andre, touchingly tells
of a wide-eyed little robot whose experiences of the natural world
gradually transform it into a real, living-breathing, playful boy.
The visual FX to make it look so natural took considerable
pre-planning by Barnsley, Mill 3D, and Adam Scott on
telecine.
For the first part of the commercial, puppeteers operated a
full-scale model of the robot, which was later replaced by a CG
version. Occasionally, the two were combined. In the early
live-action sequence the puppeteers' shadows and footsteps had to
be removed from the autumn leaves but the robot's shadow
retained.
To get the CG model to interact with the water, the boy was
dressed in simple blue 'robot pyjamas' and asked to frolic about in
the muddy puddle. The boy's image was then removed and a CG robot
rotoscoped to match his movements. Finally, the splashing about was
restored on top of a well-lit CG model. Excellent reference plates
for every shot allowed the details to be matched with incredible
precision.
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