It’s a neat commercial, but unfortunately it’s a bit controversial…

http://youthoughtwewouldntnotice.com/blog3/

There’s controversy as to wether or not this spot rips off a panoramic painting by artists Kozyndan.

http://kozyndan.livejournal.com/113874.html

Hmm, that’s weird, but rip-off or not…..

HOOOLLLLLLYYYYYYYYY CRAAAAAAAPPPPPPPP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Made me feel good too, Jerry. Stop-Motion takes over New York! It would be neat if they re-made King Kong atop the Empire State Bldg the same way…wouldn’t that be crazy!

I’m inspired.

It’s a shame about the controversy, as it is a stunning ad. You can see a brief making of video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kvbuUDUDEmU

I think it references Kozydan, and is influenced by them, but we’re all influenced by one another. It doesn’t “rip off” Kozydan in any meaningful way in my opinion. I know that Xeni Jardin on BoingBoing seemed to be insinuating that the ad agency and animation company just stripped out the whole idea, but that doesn’t seem to be the case to me.

And here:

http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/adwatch/sony-bastards-ripped-off-the-bunny-tsunami-ad-307398.php

Between the technicolor rabbits invading NYC and the “bunny wave”, I think it’s safe to say that someone at Fallon is a Kozyndan fan.

That said, it’s an amazing spot and the most impressive feat of stopmotion animation I’ve ever seen.

Did the ad agency pay a license to the original artist? If they were going to be “reference” Mickey Mouse or Bugs Bunny in a commercial to this degree, you bet they would pay a license fee. Why isn’t Kozydan entitled to the same?

Tom - I can’t say agree with your easy going attitude there.

There’s a vast difference between being influenced by someone and stealing their ideas. I would bet a lot of money that if they had been your bunny ideas the agency lifted you would not feel the same way.

I think the payoff here is the visual surprise of seeing technicolor stop-motion bunnies hopping around an urban environment as people walk among them. Substitution animation is so enormously labor intensive that to do it on this scale has simply never been done before. I’m not sure what’s trite about it; would it be less trite if they were abstract shapes instead of cute rabbits?

While they refer to their piece as “Play-Doh”, they are using a variety of materials including modeling clay rather than actual Play-doh (whose consistency probably wouldn’t hold on or allow to be used for a long period of time to clay in this case). I otherwise like the fact they didn’t try to hide the fact this was obviously being animated over a period of hours, days and even weeks, exposing the obvious cars and people whom pop in and hour of the shots, or the shadows moving by from the planet’s rotation.

Elliot- I just don’t see that much similarity here. There is more actionable “influence” in Kozydan’s bunny-filled appropriation of Hokusai’s Great Wave image.

Didn’t think of that, didja?

At any rate, this spot, as Amid pointed out, is rawtha lame. There is very little going on here conceptually. There is no smoking bunny here, apologies to Kozik.

I’m sorry, but I’m starting to wonder what it takes to impress you grumpy lot. =/

Passion Pictures continue to impress me. They’ve done some amazing work. It is a ripoff of Kozyndan, I have no doubt of that. The simmalritys to the drawings and the add are two obvious. But it’s not the first time an artist has been ripped off by an add agency. Still, what a great add, must have been a lot of fun to put together.

TV commercial in shamelessly ripped off from uncredited artwork shocker!

Yes, okay, normally that would get my back up plenty - can we all have some frickin perspective here and concentrate on what an incredible feat of animation this is?

Until I saw the making of, it didn’t even cross my mind that they DIDN’T cheat. I figured they just shot a bunch of timelapse sequences as background plates and did most of the rest with CG and smaller scaled studio work. Which would have been a perfectly non-insane way to do it. But it seems those Passion boys went and done it the crazy way.
Ho much of the making-of do we really buy though? It leaves a lot of questions unanswered. That’s the REAL controversy here…

I have been an SP-FX buff for a long time, but i can’t for the life of me work out how they managed to suspend the entire bunny models in mid-air for stop-motion filming……….i know that WILLIS O’BRIEN utilized hidden devices and ‘invisible’ wires in some ‘KING KONG’ shots involving mid-air animation puppets, but this doesn’t seem practical here………..i can only assume ‘holding’ devices were removed later, with boring old digital manipulation………

Passion Pictures addresses the rip off theory over on the http://www.creativereview.co.uk/crblog/passion-sony-play-doh-no-rip-off/” rel=”nofollow”>Creative Review website.

From the article: “Fallon, Sony and Passion have issued the following joint statement: “There is suggestion that there is a similarity between an illustration by Kozyndan and the new Sony BRAVIA ‘Play-Doh’ advert . Sony would like to stress that the advert conception, creative and final animation is not based on any pre-existing artwork. Sony Europe, its agency Fallon, production company Gorgeous, and animation company Passion Pictures, assert that the wave, whale and bunnies were arrived at without reference to these artists. In the original script, the rabbits were one of many creatures to cavort around a cityscape. In fact, the location was only finalised shortly before the shoot. The final creative, led by Juan Cabral at Fallon and director Frank Budgen at Gorgeous, was chosen to champion the brand and best reflect ‘colour.like.no.other’. Sony enjoys working with experienced and talented creatives and all involvement in a campaign is always credited.â€?

@RAB SMITH:

If you watch the making of video, you’ll see little stands that hold the rabbits up while they’re in mid air. It seems as if your assumption was right and they did a bit of rod removal in post.

Jerry, do I love this British television commercial advertisement for
Sony BRAVIA high definition color television receivers!

http://www.sony-europe.com