Ellie & Archie

The 2019 film is the third in the #ReindeerReady campaign, following on from Framestore’s Santa sleigh of CG reindeer in McDonald’s 2018 Christmas commercial. This year’s film is a beautifully animated story created by Passion Pictures that eventually resolves in live action. ​

Framestore was responsible for creating the transition effects between the two mediums and the VFX in the live action portion of the film, working with Passion Pictures and Leo Burnett to create this lovingly crafted ad.

Darran Nicholson, Senior Flame Artist at Framestore, created the transition as the film’s animated character turned into its real-life doppelgänger. In order to create an animated version of a real-life person, Passion Pictures had exaggerated certain facial features. Framestore needed to accommodate this when mapping out how the transition would look. After an initial pass saw the transition looking too smooth, Nicholson made sure the effect of turning animation into live action wasn’t lost and created something that struck the right balance between the two mediums.

The transition effects itself took advantage of the clever use of bokeh effects that are seen throughout the animated ad. ‘Instead of using a typical glittery Christmas effect around the elements changing between animation and live action we wanted to make sure the effects felt as much of a part of the film as possible,’ commented Nicholson. ‘Taking small, out of focus lights from elsewhere in the commercial and using them to accentuate the film’s transition felt like the best way to do this.’

The team was also tasked with adding small elements to enhance the commercial’s visuals, including matching up snow on the roof and adding a McDonald’s sign to a live action shot of a McDonald’s restaurant. It was important that this shot was augmented in such a way that it matched up perfectly with the version in Passion Pictures’ animation.