Just Eat - Magic is Real. 60' commercial from Academy Films' directors Si & Ad. 

A demanding project which combines live action footage from the location with studio based, stop frame animation. 

The directors wanted the fluid flexibility of Stedicam moves and the texture of stop frame animated props in the finished shots. Firstly the brains at Freefolk took on the task of tracking the live action footage and supplied the move data to the VFX Co. who cleverly used their 3D rig chase software, combined with some superb brain power, to apply it to their Milo moco rigs thus reproducing the live action moves matching the original shots. 

By overlaying the live action reference in Dragonframe software our animators, Tony and Tom; skilled in the magic art of stop frame, breathed life into a collection of knives, pots and pans, paper bags and a chopsticks demonstrating neatly that dinner can practically make itself. 

Arming myself with an array of with camera notes, lighting plans, art department drawings and 360 reference shots and after several strong cups of coffee, I undertook to reproduce the look and lighting conditions which would sit our animated action into the correct environment. 

Academy Films 
Producer: Lucy Gosage 
Directors: Si & Ad
Live action DOP Niels Thastum
Stop frame DOP Malcolm Hadley
Animation: Tony Farquar-Smith & Tom Edgar
Motion control by the VFX Co. 
Gaffer Tim O'Connell
AC Mark Swaffield / Jack Exton / Christophe Leignel 

VFX supervisor: Jason Watts 
Post house: Freefolk 
Duke's Island Studios