In their latest work for Finnish online retailer Verkkokauppa.com, the crew at Helsinki animation studio Boutique borrows inspiration from Ash Thorp and the TRON franchise to build out a neon fantasy world.

Sara Heikkinen, producer at Boutique: “All of the animations we’ve created for Verkkokauppa.com are in different styles and techniques. This project was briefed to us with two main ideas: Verkkokauppa.com is offering a new fast lane product for their B2B customers, and the agency felt a vaporwave-inspired world with a car speeding through it would be a fitting treatment.

“We instantly got super excited about the project even though the deadline was already approaching as fast as the car in the animation. We had 14 work days from the brief to delivery (including cut down and cropped versions). To accomplish the 30 seconds of animation with that deadline we focused on how we could create the amount of shots needed in the most efficient way possible.
 

“This kind of project is a rare possibility for us to really do something interesting and show what we are capable of in the small Finnish market.”

 
“We ended up building a scene where the car drives towards the sunset and all of the shots (except the two in the office) are just different cameras with different frame ranges rendered from the same scene. This approach also allowed us to have a consistent look between shots.

“One challenge was that we needed to approve the flow of the animation very quickly so we could move forward with building the scene in 3D. Our solution was making a mock-up edit with existing material from movies and cool projects on the internet. Shout out to Ash Thorp and his breathtaking work with cars. If you have a really sharp eye you might also notice that we took one camera move straight from the TRON: Legacy movie.

“We are constantly surprised by both the agency Bob the Robot and the client for their willingness to do something special instead of just sticking with the old ways. This kind of project is a rare possibility for us to really do something interesting and show what we are capable of in the small Finnish market.”
 
 

 
Client: Verkkokauppa.com

Agency: Bob the Robot
Art Director: Teemu Lappalainen
Copywriter: Lauri Leiwo
Project manager: Heidi Nieminen
Project coordinator: Anni Saares
Client Director: Hertta Saarikangas
Creative Director: Henri Haka

Production: Boutique
Producer: Sara Heikkinen
Lead artist: Harry Ahokas
3D artist: Harry Ahokas, Panu Pietiläinen, Dayoung Song
Compositor: Harry Ahokas
Editor: Harry Ahokas

Music & Sound: Elikia Peti-Peti

Toolkit: Cinema 4D, OctaneRender, Blackmagic Fusion