Using an heartwarming mix of felt puppetry and CG animation, director Stephane Berla and Paris prodco Eddy fight loneliness in the Belgian city of Bruges this holiday season on behalf of charity De Warmste Week and broadcaster VRT.

From the team at Eddy: “The most exciting challenge for this campaign was visually interpreting the inner Flame — a symbol of the literal flame everyone carries within as well as the logo for the event. Everyone’s Flame is different: some burn big and strong, while others are small and desperately kept alight.
 

“Solutions had to be found to make the flames resolutely friendly, harmless, and capable of pure kindness.”

 
“One of the agency’s and the client’s warnings was that the flame in the hand can seem dangerous. So solutions had to be found to make the flames resolutely friendly, harmless, and capable of pure kindness. We did this by humanizing them, using felt textures that make you want to snuggle up to them.

“The production challenges lay in realistically integrating the 3D flame animation into the live-action environment. There were technical constraints linked to tracking and post-production, mastering complex reflections (particularly on wet ground), and implementing a 3D scan of surfaces before shooting to ensure lighting consistency.

“Each shot required multiple passes with luminous objects to capture natural reflections and provide precise data for the composition of the flames, while avoiding these objects being visible in the image.”
 
 

 
Client: VRT, De Warmste Week

Agency: Mutant
Chief Creative/Strategy: Odin Saillé
CD: Ruben Van Maldeghem, Jesse Van Gysel
Creative: Simon Pyson, Iris Nuyts
Producer: Thomas Koltsidas
Design Director: Frank Schouwaerts
Designer: Tjen Colman
Motion Designer: Bob Van den Audenaerde

Production: Eddy
Director: Stéphane Berla
Head of Animation: Emilie Walmsley
Producer: Julie Paturle
Head of Advertising Department: Romain Cabanier
Line Producer: Romane Belaisch
Production Coordinator : Sanjay Tamli
Storyboard: Romain Collette
Character Creation/Sculpt: Stéphane Berla
Concept/Layout: Wenkai Wang
Background Creation: Léa Peirano
Animator: Samy Fecih, Pipou Nguyen
Lighting/Rendering/Compositing: Stéphane Berla
Key Visual: Damien Desvignes
Confo/Versioning: Lou Devaux
Technical Supervisor/Rendering: Antoine Pages
Technical Development: Betti Abbattista

Sound post-production: Raygun

Music: Portland