Won over by her Marilyn Manson clip work, David Bowie’s latest video was directed by Partners’ Floria Sigismondi for u.s.-based U Ground Films. Sigismondi brought the complex Little Wonder special post effects project to Toronto’s Mad Dog Digital, which joined the prepro with creative input on how to piece together the tale of an alien in New York that is rife with diverse film speeds and fancy lens work.

Executive producer Sylvain Taillon dealt with a triptych of the just-turned-50 pop god (Bowies young, old and alien), and a cast of characters made up of digitally projected parts of faces (human and animal). Flame artists James Cooper and Susan Armstrong were both on set for the shoot in New York in order to inspect lighting, etc., to get the desired ingredients for the transformation scenes.

Three weeks of intensive production followed to accomplish the color treatment, digital projection and character transitions. Animation was limited to the geometry needed to achieve the aforementioned effects, like turning a mushroom cap into an eyeballAll in all a disconcertingly intense – and disturbingly seamless – Tim Burtonesque feast for the eyes.

Persis Reynolds was producer, and the compositing feat was abetted by Aaron Weintraub on Flame. Partners’ Michelle Czukar edited.

Mad Dog’s Cooper was also embroiled in the final composits and digital embellishment on the new Honeycomb spot on air featuring a furry flying beastie.

The project is the result of TOPIX Computer Graphics & Animation’s take on an ilm-created puppet character – Craver. Blue Sky, New York, did the first in the cgi/live-action spot series, topix won the next two by upping the liveliness factor. It was the shop’s refinement of the critter, aesthetic embellishments (such as fur enhancement that would make Sy Sperling drool), that won the topixsters the job from Grey, New York.

Delivering expressiveness and articulation of motion was also a deciding factor, says producer Lisa Weinrib. Frank Falcone was director of animation, assisted by Dave Hodgins, Andrea Leo, Sean Montgomery and Robert Padovan. Colin Withers was tech director.