John Lewis - The Bear & The Hare + Making

Directed by Elliot Dear & Yves Geleyn
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The John Lewis Christmas campaign has become a symbol of the start of the British festive season, and Blinkink and Hornet are proud to present The Bear & the Hare, Elliot Dear and Yves Geleyn’s heartwarming animated film for John Lewis and Adam & Eve DDB.

There once was an animal who had never seen Christmas. As autumn winds turn to winter snow, the bear begins his annual retreat into hibernation to sleep his way through the best part of the year. The festive spirit is strong though, and his friend the hare is determined to give him a gift he has never received before – Christmas.

John Lewis 'The Bear & The Hare' - The Making Of

Making of film directed by Jake & Josh
jakeandjosh.co.uk

The Bear & the Hare is the first John Lewis campaign to embrace the emotive power of animation, a filmic technique so evocative of Christmasses gone by.

Elliot and Yves took the two most traditional and time-honoured animation processes – stop-motion and traditional hand-drawn 2D animation – and combined them to create something innovative and unique. Their aim was to do almost everything in camera, using real lighting, lens and film craft to build a world where the audience can see and feel the painstaking work behind it. The 2D animation’s physical interaction with the set and the human imperfections inherent in the process create a hand-crafted piece full of heart and integrity.

The animation process involved constant shifts between 2D and 3D worlds. In order to achieve this complicated combination the whole film was first created in Blinkink Studios as a 3D previsualisation animatic with all the sets and characters built to scale. This allowed everything to be developed and planned alongside the modelmakers and animators, thus integrating the different disciplines and processes before the set was built or the characters were printed.

Aaron Blaise (Brother Bear, The Lion King, Mulan) and his team of veteran Disney animators at Premise Entertainment in Orlando, Florida, designed and animated the characters. The 2D-animation frames were printed onto mounted paper and cut with a laser. Each frame (nearly 4,000 in total) was then individually hand-labelled before going on set. Feature-film stop-frame animators then spent 6 weeks bringing the world to life.

The set was built by our production designer John Lee (Aliens, Fantastic Mr Fox, Frankenweenie) and his team at Shepperton Studios before being transported to Clapham Road Studios ready for the stop-motion shoot.

Post-production was done in-house in Blinkink’s animation studio, and the final grade was completed at MPC.

CREDITS
Directors:
Elliot Dear & Yves Geleyn

Executive Producers:
Bart Yates
Michael Feder

Producers:
Bart Yates
James Stevenson Bretton
Josephine Gallagher

Line Producer:
Kev Harwood

Production Manager:
Benjamin Lole

2D Animation:
Premise Entertainment LLC

2D Animation Supervisors:
Aaron Blaise
Dominic Carola

2D Line Producer:
Iris Pearson

2D Animators:
Erin Humiston
Darko Cesar

Head of Clean-up 2D Animation:
Janelle Bell-Martin

2D Clean-up Artists:
Mi Yul Lee
Teresa Quezada-Geer
Jacque Pierro
Chad Thompson
Jason Peltz

2D Compositor/Scene Setup:
Mac Masters

2D Artistic Coordinator:
Pam Darley

2D Digital Artist:
Anthony West
Enoc Castaneda

2D Lead Colourist/Coordinator:
James Lancett

2D Colourists:
Sean Weston
Joseph Sparkes
Frankie Swan
Harriet Gillian

Assistant 2D Colourist:
Lila Peuscet

2D Illustrator Technician:
Albert Sala

Printers:
The Graphical Tree

Laser Cutting:
Ewen Dickie

Designer/Typographer:
Robert Frank Hunter

Storyboard Artists:
Sav Akyuz
Steve Tappin
James Lancett
Robert Frank Hunter

3D Technical Director:
Patrick Hearn

3D Previsualisation Artist:
Simone Ghilardotti
Lucas Cuenca
Johannes Sambs

Lead Stop-Frame Animator:
Andy Biddle

Stop-Frame Animators:
Daniel Ojari
Daniel Gill

Production Designer/ Supervising Modeller:
John Lee

Art Department Modellers:
Colin Armitage
Sonya Yu
Maggie Haden
Collette Pidgeon
Yossel Simpson Little
Richard Blakey
Gary Welch
Christy Matta
Lucy Begent

Scenic Painters:
Fiona Stewart
Beth Quinton

Rigging Department:
Richard Blakey

Art Department Assistants:
Morgan Faverty
Anna Ginsburg
Jennifer Newman

MOCO/Camera Assistant:
Max Halstead

Director of Photography:
Toby Howell
Gaffer:
Aldo Camilleri
Runner:
Robert Gould

Post Production:
Blinkink Studios
Post Production/Compositing:
Alasdair Brotherston
Ian Sargent
Carlos Diego
Jonathan Gallagher
Elliot Dear

Editors:
Sam Sneade at Speade
Ellie Johnson at Speade

Music Consultants:
Leland Music

Sound Design:
Sam Robson at Factory Studios

Colourist:
Jean-Clement Soret at MPC

‘Making of’ Film:
Jake Hopwell & Josh Hine

Studio Manager:
Elizabeth Day

Studio Assistant:
Toby Goodyear

Catering:
Laura Barbi

Advertising Agency:
Adam & Eve DDB

Executive Creative Director:
Ben Priest

Creative Directors:
Aidan McClure Laurent Simon

Agency Producer:
Anthony Falco

Assistant Producer:
Catherine Cullen