From the Mill: “Working closely with Havas and directors dom&nic at Outsider, we helped to create “It’s a Wonderful Flight,” the heartwarming sequel to last year’s festive spot for Heathrow Airport.

“This year we see the introduction of second and third generation bears, setting an even bigger challenge for our VFX artists to create over 29 iterations of the bears, each to an astounding photo-real finish.

“The CG was primarily handled in Maya with some modeling and cloth simulations completed in Marvelous Designer. It was rendered using Arnold and some extra fur simulations were handled in Houdini. The shots were comped in Nuke with the timeline handled in Flame.”

BTS Editors: Rauri Cantelo, Remi Aaron
 
Watch the finished spot:

 
Client: Heathrow Airport

Agency: Havas
Producer: Kiri Carch
Executive Creative Director: Ben Mooge
Creative Director: Lynsey Atkin
Assistant Producers: James Pinnington, Adrianne Godfrey, Debbie Ragasa

Production Company: Outsider
Director: dom&nic
Executive Producer: John Madsen
Director of Photography: Tom Townend

VFX: The Mill
Executive Producer: Reece Ewing
Shoot Supervisor: Hitesh Patel

VFX Creative: The Mill
Executive Creative Director: Neil Davies
2D Lead Artist: Fergal Hendrick
3D Lead Artist: Alan Williamson
2D Artist: Olivia O’Neil, Rebecca Clay, Gustavo Ribeiro, Guy Lubin, Charles Dockerill
3D Artist: Mike Chapman, Phillipe Moine, Clement Granjon, Giacomo Cavelletti, Carlo Carfora, Adam Droy, Jacob Gonzalez, Clement Granjon, Giacomo Cavelletti, Jacques Leyreloup, David Knight, Alain Thay, Michael Hunault, Gabrielius Burokas, Evelina Dalin, Jack Harris, Sergio Xisto, Patrick Keogh, Sid Harrington-Odedra, Josh Curtis, Kristian Olsson, Walter How, Andreas Graichen, Peter Agg, Perrine Renard, Aziz Kocanaogullari, Matt Kavanagh, Ash Reemul, Rimelle Khayat, Andrew Bartholomew

Editorial: Final Cut
Editor: Ed Cheeseman
Edit Assist: Kit Wells
Producer: Frankie Elster