Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/65907
Animation ■ ■ ■ ■ action and animation also coincided with the traditional spots. For in- stance, when the Patriots-fan bear, unhappy with the way the game was going, got up from the couch and left the cave in the TV spot "Catch," the cave camera in the streamed piece also showed the bear getting up and leaving the cave, with the stationary camera captur- ing the remaining character as it occasionally glances toward the doorway, wondering when the Pats bear would return. Meanwhile, at the end of the commercial, after the Patriots bear makes a spectac- ular saving catch of a Coke thrown by a group of bears outdoors, the camera pulls back to show the Giants bear on the couch inside the cave, nodding its head and clapping in appreciation of the catch. At the same time, the live-streamed animation shows the head nod and the clap, as well. So for those fans using a second screen (computer) for related content during the game, the action was never broken between the various media. And it was not just the Coke commer- cials that provoked a reaction from the bears. "If something exciting was going on in one of the commercials, we would cover it in our live stream—so it would feel like the TV spots were somewhat live," says Framestore's Digital Creative Director Mike Woods. Th e illusion continued via the social media campaign. In another Coca-Cola fi rst, the real-time bears took over the @CocaCola Twitter account, with the characters tweeting using the hashtag #GameDayPolarBears; they also inter- acted with fans live via the Coca-Cola Facebook page, responding to requests, displaying messages, and even reacting to the traditional commercial breaks dur- ing the game. At times, the tweets en- couraged viewers to send photos of their Super Bowl parties in progress, and the live-streamed bears incorporated them, as well as messages, into the presentation—holding up a tablet computer displaying the pictures, for instance. As trendy and technologically savvy as the bears were, the inspiration behind the integrated media blitz was the ad team at Wieden + Ken- nedy, while VFX facility Framestore and game developer Blitz Games Studios were responsible for the technology that made possible the cut- ting-edge, real-time animation in this game-changing campaign. Two Worlds Converge Th e digital platform that brought the computer-generated bears to life and allowed fans to follow their reactions throughout the eve- ning employed proprietary technology developed by the two inde- pendent UK-based studios, Framestore and Blitz. Th e bears—which were an aesthetic match to their pre-rendered counterparts for visual continuity—were animated, or puppeteered, live via conventional video-game controllers. Th e core technology capitalized on Framestore's expertise in high- quality linear characters and animation, and Blitz's expertise in real- time rendering and multi-platform game engines. "Blitz fundamentally under stands performance," says Woods. (Blitz is a character-based game studio.) "Th is is not just about computer graphics and gameplay. Th ey have an in-house development team that studies facial muscles, emo- tions. Th ey have a diff erent way of working compared to other game companies, and it fi ts with what we do with character design." It was Framestore's Woods who initially came up with the idea of melding the two sectors by taking characters from the fi lm and television worlds and putting them in a game engine so they could be controlled in real time with game console controllers, for advertising or other purposes. "We take care of the digital side of campaigns for clients, and we often have to match content from TV spots with Web-site content," says Woods, who had been using Flash for these projects but was looking for technology that off ered a more robust solution. Woods shared his vision and concept with Blitz, inquiring whether the developer could start prototyping a game engine that could indeed run one of Framestore's characters, with the goal of creating a high-end Framestore teamed up with Blitz Games Studios to develop technology that formed the core of a unique digital experience involving the Coca-Cola polar bears. real-time interactive character. "We realized that the game world was slightly behind the fi lm world when it came to what we could do with visual eff ects and animation," he says. "Grand Th eft Auto and Modern Warfare still do not look as good as Harry Potter and Batman, but they are not that far behind when you are dealing with CG characters, not photoreal humans, as the starting point." Blitz's R&D Art Director Jolyon Webb was intrigued. "Our stock- in-trade is producing fully reactive characters, though they didn't have as high degree of polish and fi nish as those in a high-end TV com- mercial or fi lm," he says. "We decided to combine our synergies [with Framestore] to see if we could make an interactive character that matched as closely as possible a rendered character you would see on TVs and gave a consistent, adaptive performance." Once Framestore and Blitz got the technology working, Woods con- tacted a former colleague who was working at Wieden + Kennedy and showed him the prototype. A few months later, Woods received a call from the agency, which was interested in using the technology for the Coke campaign. So in August, Woods began working even more closely with Webb to turn their concept into technology that could be used for this specifi c project. Adding to the project's complexity was the agency's desire to match the characters and their performances to those in the television commercials that would air during the broadcast. Blitz took the reins of the Coca-Cola real-time animation concept, April/May 2012 19