Blinkink director Elliot Dear (who moved a nation to tears with “The Bear and the Hare”) unites the talents of 37 animators, artists and designers to create a similar effect in this monumental hand-animated call to action for English Rugby Team sponsor O2 in advance of the 2015 Rugby World Cup.

“Pre-production began with eight weeks of crafting the storyboards. Elliot sourced character designers from around the world, working with new talent from the prestigious Gobelins Animation School alongside established American feature talent, to design the super-sized heroes.

“This was a fine art; the characters needed to be detailed enough to look recognizable but not so detailed that they
would be impossible to animate. It took over ten iterations to just to get Chris Robshaw’s character perfect.

Watch the making-of:

“Elliot sought to make something more sophisticated than traditional 2D animation to fit the modern technology brand of O2. He employed camera point projection, a technique using CG to create layouts and camera moves, which were then passed over to the digital matte painters as reference for their backgrounds.

“The result is unique, creating the feeling of a real camera moving through a traditional hand-painted background.

“The rousing cinematic music was created by working with highly regarded music supervisors Major Tom. The score was specifically composed by Theo Vidgen, who’s previous credits include ‘The Hobbit’, and was recorded at Abbey Road Studios with a 65 piece orchestra.”

Production metrics:
• 7 months
• 2 character designers
• 30 animators
• 2 animation studios
• 4 background artists
• 1 composer
• 1 orchestra, 65 musicians
• 6500 frames
• 57 background paintings

Agency
VCCP

Creative Directors
Johnny Parker
Chris Birch

Creatives
Tom Houser
Christopher Keatinge

Agency Producer
Ben Honour

For Blinkink

Director: Elliot Dear

Executive Producers
James Stevenson Bretton
Bart Yates

Producer
Benjamin Lole

Production Manager & Editor
Hugo Donkin

Digital & Print Assets Producer
Emily Lay

Supervising Animator
& Storyboard Artist
Michael Schlingmann

Additional Storyboarding
Simon Cartwright.

Character Design
Chase Standley
Cécile Le Carre

Additional Design, Artworking
& CG Layouts
Stephen McNally

Lead Background Designer
& Concept Artist
Julien De Man

Background Artists
Nicolas Loudot
Michael Shorten
Rafael Martin Coronel

Key Animators
Slaven Reese
Aya Suzuki
Freya Hotson
Philip Vallentin

Clean Up & Inbetweening
Premise Entertainment

Head of Production @ Premise
Dominic Carola

Head of Clean Up @ Premise
Janelle Bell-Martin

Lead CG and Layout Artist
Johannes Sambs

Grade
Houmam at ETC

Music Supervisors
Major Tom

Score Composer
Theo Vidgen

Sound
Factory