Even in an age when animators can call upon the monster memory of super-computers to help squeeze their creative juices, colored pencils and animation paper can still be called on to produce new results.

Ferenc Rofusz, Hungarian-born artist, animator, and founder and creative director of RF FlyFilms, proved that point with his most recent commercial project, ‘Solutions,’ a 30-second spot through Liggett-Stashower (Cleveland) and FlyFilm’s l.a. affiliate Cornell-Abbood.

The client, McDermott International, is a leading worldwide energy services company. Globally, it produces steam-generating equipment, environmental equipment and products for the u.s. government, constructs offshore oil rigs, and provides engineering and construction services for, among other things, the shipbuilding industry.

With his own special technique, combining colored pencil drawings, black sheets and gelled lights, Rofusz was able to soften up the company’s image considerably.

The spot, meant to expand upon McDermott’s solutions for the energy crisis and environmental concerns, is a continuous metamorphosis. A bird in the sky flies past to reveal the earth as seen from space. Moving in quickly, a tiny dot in the ocean becomes an oil rig and the sun behind it morphs into sparks while a man welds a pipe. The pipe becomes a smoke stack and the stack becomes a champagne bottle breaking on the bow of a ship as it slides into the water for the first time. From the water come dolphins, leaping in unison over a submarine in the background before they become a few of many trees in a forest. Pulling back quickly, the forest becomes only a dot as we see, again, the earth from space. Finally, the continents themselves merge, forming the company’s logo.

Rofusz, who was the recipient of an Oscar in 1980 for his short film The Fly, got back to basics and used his specialty to produce this soft and flowing spot.

Speaking from Hungary, where he was invited along with other prominent Hungarians to participate in a four-day conference in the country’s parliament, Rofusz described how his technique differs from traditional animation.

While animation usually utilizes cels in front of a relatively static background sheet, Rofusz’s technique is truly one-dimensional. Each and every image is individually drawn, foreground and background. The process, although beautiful, especially in combination with the distinct shadings of colored pencils, is particularly time consuming. Two months of 15-hour days, Sunday to Sunday, were required to complete the 30 seconds of film.

Aside from his unique drawing method, Rofusz also added an additional lighting effect to further soften the images. Black sheets with strategically placed small holes were placed behind some drawings when they were recorded on 35mm. Gelled light, the black sheets and experimentation with camera filters create a glowing effect. For example, an image of tiny houses is complete with a glow of light in each window.

For FlyFilms, Andrej Krystoforski assisted with the animation and Eva Budai produced. Charlie Luce from Film Opticals was animation cameraman. At Liggett-Stashower, the art director was Larry Pillott, the writer was Richard Ruhlman and Maura Mooney produced.