British department store John Lewis has released an ambitious annual Christmas advertisement, a £1 million hand-drawn spot with stop motion backgrounds called The Bear and the Hare. The piece was directed by Yves Geleyn and Elliot Dear through Hornet/Blinkink.

The hand-drawn character animation was created by two veterans of Disney’s former animation studio in Orlando: Dominic Carola who runs Premise Entertainment and Aaron Blaise who gained plenty of experience drawing bears when he co-directed Brother Bear. Aaron offered some details to Cartoon Brew about the project:

“I designed all of the characters while Dom and I supervised all of the animation. I personally animated all of the Bear and the Hare while Dom and his crew animated the rest of the animals. It was taken all the way through final line at Premise in Orlando. It was so great to do 2D again! I was even working on paper at my old Disney animation desk! Something I hadn’t done since Brother Bear!

CREDITS
Executive Producers: Bart Yates, Michael Feder
Producers, Bart Yates, James Stevenson Bretton, Josephine Gallagher
2D Animation: Premise Entertainment LLC
2D Animation Supervisors: Aaron Blaise, Dominic Carola
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 Colorist/Coordinator: James Lancett
2D Colorists: Sean Weston, Joseph Sparkes, Frankie Swan, Harriet Gillian
Assistant 2D Colorist: 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, Ellie Johnson
Sound Design: Sam Robson at Factory Studios
Colorist: Jean-Clement Soret at MPC