Weybridge, October 2007 - San Francisco was submerged in bouncing balls, Glasgow was covered in Paint, now Sony has unleashed a multitude of brightly coloured bunnies on New York City, with the launch of an ambitious and colourful ad for its latest range of BRAVIA High Definition LCD TVs.
The TV advert, which uses Play-Doh-like modelling clay to create hundreds of characters for the surreal and colourful storyline, takes animation to a new level by using claymation - the technique used in award winning films such as Chicken Run and Wallace & Gromit.
As with all BRAVIA ads, Sony continues to striving towards creating the experience for real. The 200 bunnies used ranged from a tiny 10 centimetres to a whopping 10 meters (30ft), with the majority of them being 1meter high (3.2 ft).
The production brought together the biggest team of animators [40] ever assembled to work on a single scene. This team spent 3 weeks choreographing the Play-Doh models in Foley Square in downtown NYC to create the 100,000 stills required to produce footage for the 60 second ad.
To add to the challenge of creating the commercial, the animators had to work whilst 8 million New Yorkers got on with their lives around them. This included bringing to life a 30ft giant rabbit in the middle of the financial district, creating a 200 sq ft purple Play-Doh wave and making a whale 'swim' through the streets of Manhattan.
The director, Frank Budgen, commented: "Technically this is the most difficult thing I've ever done. It's an incredibly difficult situation to control. One moment you have too many extras, then you don't have enough. You have New Yorkers wandering through frames and you have no say over it because we're doing it for real."
James Kennedy, Sony Europe said of the new BRAVIA ad: "This was a massive undertaking. Having already set the standard high by releasing 250,000 bouncing balls on San Francisco and creating a pyrotechnical paint display in Glasgow, we knew we had to be ambitious with the new ad.
"BRAVIA fans have high expectations from our advertising and have been watching with interest to see what the third in the trilogy would be. This production has been a technical feat, and even with forty animators working together, it took more than four hours to create just four seconds of film. But the results are spectacular."
Fans will be able to view the ad online at www.colourlikenoother.com before it is released on TV, watch behind the scenes footage shot on location during production of the ad, and immerse themselves in a colourful BRAVIA experience online.
'Play-Doh' will be available online at www.colourlikenoother.com.
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