Snoreeze Advert

Recently I got to work on an idea for a new advert for Snoreeze, a company specialising in snore relief products, nasal sprays and throat sprays. The intended audience for the advert is both genders, aged between 20-40 years of age.

The advert was only intended to be between 10-15 seconds long, so the challenge was to leave an impact in a very short space of time. I decided the best way to achieve this was to make the advert humorous, so I searched for situations in which it would be humorous or unfortunate to fall asleep.

As a result of the hype for this year's biggest film releases, such as Spectre, Jurassic World or Star Wars: The Force Awakens, I wrote a script where a young film buff falls asleep and misses an entire film on its first screening.

This is the final design for the "young film buff" who falls asleep during the movie. I recycled this design from my final BA animation, "Gopher Golf", where I had created several background characters. This character seemed to fit my idea for the Snoreeze advert best, due to his youthful, energetic and enthusiastic look and design.

As with most of my work in 2D animation, I drew the designs first, then scanned them in and coloured and perfected their designs in Photoshop. All the animation and editing for this piece was created in Photoshop, After Effects and Premiere CS6. When added up, the process of creating this advert took approximately two days.

Gopher Golf: Lip sync test #1

This video is the first lip sync test for the Golfer in 'Gopher Golf'. Here I'm testing out the idea of creating lip sync animation in Photoshop, but I feel like the styles clash here so I will likely use replacement Plasticine mouths in the final film.

Gopher Golf: Background Characters

These videos are short animations completed in Photoshop, showing the background characters for 'Gopher Golf'. These will all appear in one short clip of a crowd behind the Golfer, cheering for the winner. The characters will be in darkness as the Golfer is the scene's main focus.

Farmer

Old Man

Middle-aged woman

Young Man

Gopher Golf: Building the Golfer Puppet - Part #8

The hands and head for the Golfer were finally completed this week. The Golfer also now has a hat which, like the clothes, has been hand-knitted.

The hands were dabbed in watercolour paint and talc powder to achieve a colour similar to human skin colour. This took several attempts as it had to match the Plasticine.

The head was attached on with wires, stuck to the main body by Araldite. The joint between the head and main body will be covered by more Plasticine.

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Gopher Golf: Building the Golfer Puppet - Part #7

The final stage for my Golfer puppet is to create a head. Like the hands, it needs to be abnormally big to match the style of the film - but, at the same time, I needed to make sure the head wasn't so heavy that it would affect the body weight. The puppet still needs to be capable of standing up well on its own.

I experimented with creating heads which are, essentially, balls of Plasticine. The detail at the top of the head (the hair) wasn't too important at this time, since the Golfer will be wearing a hat.

The mouth has been left clear as I will be animating lip sync in Flash or After Effects, then tracking the mouth movements with the character's actions on screen. Eye movements and eyelids can also be animated separately.

However, the Plasticine was much too heavy on its own. The solution was to use a small piece of solid foam - a very light material - covered in a very small layer of Plasticine, only a few millimetres thick.

The feet are covered in a very light layer of Plasticine as well, which will add weight to the feet to help the puppet stand up correctly. However, I may not need to show the feet in the final film.

Gopher Golf: Building the Golfer Puppet - Part #6

Here are some further pictures showing how the Golfer's clothes were knitted from scratch. Three alternative tops were designed for the Golfer, two including different colours of crests on them. All of the tops were mostly green in colour, as per the original design.

Gopher Golf: Building the Golfer Puppet - Part #5

Here are some more pictures from the production on the Golfer puppet.

Range of colours tried out before green (as per the original design) was decided on.

Paper which has been cut to serve as a visual aid for creating the Golfer's trousers.

Temporary casing for the Golfer, until his puppet is complete. This is mainly so as not to spoil the clothes.

Nuts and bolts are included in the Golfer's feet, to help him stand up correctly.