Ever since the Fleischers made “Hoppity goes to Town”, Insects have been ubiquitous with animation. They have become some of animation’s most enduring icons: Jiminy Cricket, the characters from Pixar’s “A Bug’s Life” and Louis the Fly from the Mortein commercials come to mind. The very first fully 3D piece of animation we made years ago was for a termite barrier product. We recently got the chance to revisit the genre…
We were approached earlier this year by advertising agency, Image & Substance to create a TVC for one of their clients, Top End Pest Control. Although this was a local campaign for the Northern Territory with a smaller budget than a national campaign, it was important for us to deliver something we were proud of. Being new to animation, the agency and client were open to a lot of ideas and we were able to contribute a lot of creative ideas on how we could make something look excellent on a budget.
We decided to limit the number of characters and settings and put the main focus on memorable characters and a good story. Thematically, the TVC takes many cues from film noir and gangster films such as The Godfather, Scarface and Sin City.
Although it didn’t have the big budget or wide exposure of some of our other TVCs, its straightforward execution of an elegantly simple idea makes it one of our favourite projects to date.
[Character design concepts]
[Storyboard Frames]
