Newly adopted sons of Wales Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney join comedian Dawn French as she reprises her fairy role in the annual Marks & Spencer holiday outing via Outsider directors Dom&Nic with animated mittens and VFX by The Mill.

Andy Steele, CD at The Mill in London: “The mittens were two of the most complex characters I have ever been involved in creating. The team remade the underlying animated structural rigs several times in order to capture a range of motion and emotion.

“Having all this functionality in one rig – being able to see every knitted thread in the mittens, for example – offered creative freedom to shoot without cutting corners. We even hired a professional knitter to fabricate real-life mittens as an essential camera and lighting reference on set.
 

“We used features like the mitten’s antlers to express emotion while their body mechanics were informed by using a real mitten to puppeteer animation references for the more technical actions.”

 
David Bryan, animation director at The Mill: “We found inspiration for the mitten’s movement style in Forky from Toy Story 4, Sesame Street, and the Muppets, focusing on syncing the head and body, paired with a simple yet charming mouth action, to match the energy in Rob and Ryan’s voiceovers.

“We used features like the mitten’s antlers to express emotion while their body mechanics were informed by using a real mitten to puppeteer animation references for the more technical actions, aiming to avoid distorting the body and legs too much or over-humanizing their limbs.”
 
 

 
Client: Marks & Spencer
Marketing Director: Sharry Crammond
Head of Brand and Communications: Robbie Black
Head of Creative: Rich Robinson
Writers: Steve Wakelam, Chloe Gray and Angus Macadam
Creative: Chloe Gray
Head of Media and Campaigns: Katy Allison
Senior Advertising Manager: Katie Hooper
Assistant Advertising Manager: Vhairi Motherwell
Media Manager: Rachel Marsden
Head of Creative Production: Kate Taylor
Senior TV Producer: Charlotte Jude
Production Assistants: Jen Meakin & Lucinda Knoyle-Hughes

Production: Outsider
Directors: Dom&Nic
Executive Producer: John Madsen
Food Production Company: Bite Collective
Food Director: Gus Filgate
Executive Producers: Alex Katz and Dom Seymour

Post Production: The Mill London
Producer: Solomon Tiigah
Executive Producer: Mireille Antoine
Creative Director: Andy Steele
Animation Director: David Bryan
VFX Supervisors: Nick Slade (CG), Mike Little (CG), Johan Alfort (2D), Adrian Monroy (2D), Lora Nikolaeva (2D), Vanessa Duquesnay (2D)
Color: Peter Oppersdorff
Character Asset Developers: Silvia Bartoli, Paolo Ceresa, Florent Sanglard, Roman Vrbovsky, Will Burdett
Animation Lead: George Rigby
Animation Artists: Chris Welsby, Mack Knights, Alberto Lara, Thomas Craig, Rachel Ward
FX TD: Platon Filimonov
FX Artists: Florent Sanglard, Arnau Gilabert, Dimitri Allonneau
Lighting Artists: Jack Enever, Katie Bates, Tatjana Ljubimtseva, Luke Webster
2D Artists: Mithun Alex, Marko Perendija, Vipin Tripathi, Jane Edwards, Leah Ayinde, Polly Gwinnett

Post-Production: The Mill Bangalore
Producer: Ameya Chitnis
Production Coordinator: Ashokkumar Arul
DFX supervisor: Vivek Tekale
Project lead: Antany Subramaniam
Compositing Lead: Amresh Kumar
Compositing Artist: Aasheesh Singh, Chandan Kamalakar Shete, Gangadharam Raja, Hemant Parshuram Sawant, Jayant Sharma, Jeril C Joseph, Nikhil K M, Srinivas A
Lighting Supervisor: Aritra Kumar Sarkar
Lighting Lead: Deepa Thapa
Lighting Artist: Bingi Akhil, Garima Yadav, Pratik Sharma, Ravi Kant Nirala, Setty Ashok Chakravarthy, Stacie Fina Dsouza, Sweekar Revankar, Trinath Sarkar, Dwadasi Saicharan Sastri, Karan Jitendra Patel
FX Supervisor: Biswajit Tarafder
FX Lead: Madivadanatamilparidy Ramamoorthy
FX Artist: Gleaces Juvilian, Manik Suvedi
Asset Supervisor: Dakoju Shashi Kumar
Asset Lead: Jayadeep Chandran
Asset Artist: Abhishek Nishad, Amalraj P, Boricha Mohit Narshibhai, Dipak Chularam Nimje, Prashanth C
Animation Supervisor: Sukanta Chakraborty
Animation Lead: Srinivasa Rao Rella
Animation Artist: Badireddy Sri Charan, Jithin K, Madhurima Das Gupta, Nisham Khan, Raman Bhatia, Ravi Panwar, Vinod Kumar Darapu
DMP Supervisor: Gowri Sankar Velusamy D
DMP Lead: Sandipan Majumder
DMP Artist: Jibin Baby P,Paresh Kumar Swain, Mohan Rao, Premanand Shivanand Naik
Rigging Lead: Garlapati Yeswanth
Rigging Artist: Megha Minish Mehta
MatchMove Supervisor: Elangovan Ganeshan
Matchmove Lead: Gautam Sarode
Matchmove Artist: Abhishek Popat Pise
Anil Rathor, Ankita Chanda, Asif Mohammad, Chetan Balasaheb Kadam, Ganesh Sonar, Kiran Auti, Kiran Kharge, Kishor Shivaji Apune, Kunnath Madhu Aswathi, Mahesh Wagh, Mansi Kodikal, Morisetti Srikanth, Mukesh Gavade, Nallur Suhas Bhat, Namrata Yadav, Puppala Vinod Kumar, Rohit Kamble, Rutik Anil Sutar, Santanu Bhattacharya, Sarathkumar K, Sayed Hussain, Shubham Sah, Shyamal Waghamare, Suman Sahu, Tanisha Kashyap, Tirupati Bhavani Shankar Derangula, Titisa Sarkar, Typhan Rai, Upasana Choudhary, Viraj Tendulkal, Vishal Shirsat, Yogesh Khot, Arjun Babu, Rais Pinjari:
Rotoscoping Supervisor: Sivakumar R
Rotoscoping Lead: Moumita Ganesh Pratihar, Md Gazzali
Rotoscoping Artist: Abhishek yadav, Ankit Shaw, Imrojul Khan, Jagannatham Venkata Rakesh, Nitin Yashwant Thorat, Onkar Ghatage, Pratik Krushnanath Sonkusale, Rahul Chandrakant Jagtap, Sandeep Mishra, Shubham Mokashi, Sugankumar R C, Tushar Suresh Bhat, Vishal Kumar, Hrushikesh Kadu, Nitin Thorat
Prep Supervisor: Sugumar S
Prep Lead: Guthikonda Venkateswara Rao, Jalander Madishetty
Prep Artist: Abhishek Deswal Anil Kumar, Dhundappa Kallappa Pattan, Dundi Sudhakar Reddy, Kamatham Pavan, Kanak Kumar, Manoj Kumar, Mohammad Sohel Khan, Prasanna Kumar Mandavalli, Sailen Khanra, Sukhwinder Singh, Vadlamudi Hari Sankar, Shailesh Madhav

Live action Edit: Final Cut
Live action Editor: Ed Cheeseman
Live Action Assistant Editor: Ruby Browne
Live Action Edit Producer: Nikki Porter
Food Edit: Marshall Street
Food Editor: John Mayes

Music Company: Wake the Town
Composer: Charlie Smith

Audio: Clearcut Sound Studios
Sound Design: James Clark
Audio Producer: Chris Wrigglesworth, Lindsay Grant