Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/16039
cover story Motion Theory hits Bullseyefor Target V By MARC LOFTUS SENIOR EDITOR mloftus@postmagazine.com ENICE, CA— Target has long been a friend to the consumer, offering low-cost deals on all sorts of sea- sonal clothing, electronics and home goods. Now, the retailer is extending its business with the addition of a fresh grocery depart- ment within select stores. To get the message out,Target worked directly with creative production studio Mo- tion Theory (www.motiontheory.com) to produce a fully-animated :30 spot that re- sembles many of today’s animated features. Here, director Chris Riehl details the cre- ative process and the pressure of creating Pixar-style animation in just a few weeks. POST: Tell us about A Better Bullseye? CHRIS RIEHL: “It was probably the most fun I’ve had on a job.” POST: You worked directly with Target? There was no agency? RIEHL: [Laughs] “That’s one of the rea- sons it was so much fun. Initially they pre- sented us with client boards that had the rough idea and talking points to get the con- versation going. I saw the initial pitch boards and was like, ‘This is awesome!’ Basically, what it said was,‘We’re going to open up the bullseye, and we’re going to get a cast of Pixar-like characters to playfully fill the bulls- eye with fruit.” POST: Why that particular style? RIEHL: “Our client was very interested in Motion Theory designed Pixar-like characters for Target’s ABetterBullseye. capturing the Pixar look.We always want to try not to repeat what other people have done, however there is sort of a common vernacular for that kind of work.That’s what contemporary animation looks like. Pixar fo- cuses on the character stories and making sure people get a sense of who they are be- fore they even speak.The similarities that you see between Pixar and DreamWorks and Sony is that they really spend a lot of time on their character development and creating a world that is strangely specific to that aesthetic.” POST: How did you develop the look for Target? RIEHL: “We put together a rather large treatment the weekend after receiving this pitch board, and they responded very posi- tively. I think we gave them a 60- or 70-page treatment.That document, with all of the rough character sketches and rough world ideas, was done in few days. It was intense. “We began production the Wednesday after Easter and our first deliverable — a :15 version — [was completed] in two-and-a-half 14 Post • September 2010 weeks. So in two-and-a-half weeks we were 75 percent done with the entire project.” POST: How many models had to be cre- ated and animated? RIEHL: “Hundreds! We have 10 charac- ters and ultimately we redesigned and re- modeled two or three of them over that course of time.We were fortunate to work with really talented character modelers and character riggers.We built everything out job had a team that was fairly significant, however, there were two very large teams working in parallel on two very large spots. One being the Katy Perry California Gurls music video, as well as the Walt Disney Land Resort World of Color spot. At that moment in time, the office had eight jobs running.” POST: You must have relied on free- lancers? RIEHL: “There are a lot of freelancers, Chris Riehl directed the spot, which used Maya for modeling, character rigging and animation. to just the level it needed to be, based on our previsualization. “I think the only way it was possible to be done and make it out in the time constraints of that two-week delivery was that every single shot was meticulously storyboarded and then previsualized to the point where we knew where every single item we had intended to be on screen for both the :15 and :30 version.We spent the majority of our time building cameras and building as- sets. The :15 version, although finished in two-and-a-half weeks, was really more of a test render for getting through everything. All of the fleshing out and minor tweaks happened during the :30, which we had an- other month [for].” POST: Venice-based String handled the edit? How did that help shape the spot? RIEHL:“We made more than we wound up using.The editorial process really helped us decide what shots were strongest. Ulti- mately, we had enough material probably to make a three-minute short.” POST: How big of a job was this for Mo- tion Theory? RIEHL:“We tend to work in teams.This www.postmagazine.com but there is also a large staff of talented people here. I’d say the breakdown was 40 percent staff and 60 percent freelance.The team was about 30 people. It might have hit 40, depending on what needed to be deliv- ered.We had a period where there were three or four people just rigging characters, and a period of time where we had four or five people just building characters, or large numbers of people just texturing.” POST: What tools did you use to create the animation? RIEHL: “For modeling, we used Maya for the characters and ZBrush to clean up and do detail work.We rendered in V-Ray.We used Maya to do all of the character rigging and animating.The cameras however were built in three different applications: Cinema 4D, MotionBuilder and Maya.” POST: Why not use practical elements for items such as fruit? RIEHL:“We explored ideas on how to in- corporate photography — doing projections on basic 3D geometry — but ultimately we found the aesthetic needed to be very com- continued on page 42