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
