The unofficial opening of British Christmas was made by John Lewis stores with their heart touching advertisement "The Bear & The Hare". When I first seen it I could not imagine that it was done by hands. Elliot Dear and Yves Geleyn of Blinkink were the duo charged by Adam & Eve DDB with bringing the ideas to life and you get a nice sense of the painstaking stop-motion process they went through over a period of several months. Guys proved that everything what was made by hand and heart has absolutely different impact on a viewer. Watch the movie and making of below.

Making Of

Making of film directed by Jake & Josh www.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

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