(Thanks Floyd Bishop)

A couple weeks ago Coke unveiled the second CG ad in their new “Coke Side of Life” campaign, which is essentially a parody of the videogame GRAND THEFT AUTO. The first spot in the series was problematic in my opinion, but I have no such reservations with this second commercial. It’s directed by British duo Smith & Foulkes of Nexus Productions. These guys have one of the best track records in recent years and possess an uncanny ability to take simple, even mundane, agency concepts and execute them to perfection. Take for example their Abba to Zappa spot for the Observer Music Monthly, the ‘black ink’ obstacle course for the VW Touareg, or Motorola’s “Grand Classics” spot - conceptually, none of these ideas is particularly special yet Smith & Foulkes somehow make each one work. The same can be said of their current Coke spot which manages to turn video game parody into great art.

(via Feed)

Animator Pete Levin writes:

I saw this bank commercial while in Turkey and fell in love with it. While it’s technically live action, it feels to me like the planning for it would be very similar to animation.

Check it out below:

Last week Coke unveiled a new CG spot for its latest campaign, “The Coke Side of Life.” The commercial, “Happiness Factory” (watch it HERE), was directed by Todd Mueller and Kylie Matulick at New York City-based studio PSYOP. It’s a slick well-produced piece, but the visuals are too cluttered for my taste. While watching the commercial, my attention was constantly diverted from the primary action revolving around the bottle to the photorealistic settings and characters running around in the background. An even more questionable artistic choice, in my opinion, was the use of a photorealistic Coke bottle in a photoreal setting. It’s a definite turnoff seeing all those furball creatures slobbering over a bottle of Coke that looks exactly like the one I might pull out of a machine. Had either the bottle or the setting been more overtly stylized, the idea would have been an easier sell.

A final note: this Feed post draws a comparison between the Coke spot and the Smith & Foulkes ad for Honda called “Grrrr”. There’s a big difference between the spots, however. In the “Grrrr” spot (HERE), Smith & Foulkes offset the photoreal car engines with a spare and stylized setting that gives the entire commercial a charming airy vibe. If the “feel-good” music of the Coke commercial is any indication, they were probably after the same effect as Smith & Foulkes, but the labored visuals obscure any charm that the original concept may have had.

Nobody does a better job of parodying “retro” styles of animation than J.J. Sedelmaier. He’s done it time and time again from his Filmation-style AMBIGUOUSLY GAY DUO shorts to commercials like the ’50s-style Home Savings Bank ad to his revival of the 1970s interstitial series SCHOOLHOUSE ROCK. The genius of these works is that they’re never so over-the-top as to be instantly obvious as parody. This faithfulness (and reverence) to the original source material is exactly what makes the new works so funny. A perfect example of this can be found in Sedelmaier’s latest commercial, a 45-second spot that spoofs the classic theatrical ad “Let’s All Go To The Lobby”. J.J. kindly sent over a copy of the spot to share with CartoonBrew readers:

Because the spot was produced for the Fellowship Bible Church, the marching popcorn box, candy bar and soda cup featured in the original “Lobby” short have been replaced by a cross, a Bible, a cup of wine and a communion wafer. “The idea was to make it look like it was produced in the late ’40s, and add little things that would appear in the context of that era’s visual language, while having some fun with it,” says Sedelmaier. “The original was most likely produced by moonlighting animators who probably weren’t much better than third-string. Now it’s become a style unto itself.”

The piece was conceived by Jeff Hopfer, a creative group head and art director at Dallas-based The Richards Group and a longtime member of the church. The film theatre analogy is quite appropriate for the Fellowship Bible Church, which recently completed an 18-month project to remodel what had been a three-screen multiplex into a tabernacle that can accommodate 1,200 worshippers. The church’s real lobby is now equipped with industrial-size urns serving 20 coffee flavors and cabaret tables.

A lot of effort was put into capturing the quality of an older piece of animation. From a press release about the commercial:

The creative team wants to give the film a vintage feel, so Hopfer has arranged to output the finished digitally produced animation to film and have Sedelmaier scratch it up, add dust, and distress it manually before transferring it back to digital video - a low-tech technique he’s employed in the past on other projects, including the Episcopal Church spot he did with Hopfer in the ‘90s, the Speed Racer spot he did for Volkswagen through Arnold Worldwide, and the classic “Home Savings Bank” commercial produced for Chiat-Day. In this particular case, J.J. added bad tape splices to cause the film to jump slightly as it travels through the film gate.

Commercial credits are as follows: J.J. Sedelmaier, director/producer; Dave Lovelace, production manager and animator; Dan Madia and Claire Widman, storyboard and design; John Bonarrigo, animation and design; Steve Jackett, animation and assisting; Gene DiCiccio, design and assisting; and Heather Krumm, models, backgrounds and assisting. For more about Sedelmaier’s work, read this great interview with him at HOGAN’S ALLEY.