Apple Box Productions and Lightbox Animation’s new spot for Zellers Toyland had everyone involved working backwards.

The spot is a live-action/animation combo, which usually calls for the live action being shot first followed by the animation. But in this case the routine was reversed, with the animation assembled first and live-action shots composed to fit it.

The spot features Zeddy, the airborne animated Zellers teddy bear, veteran of four previous commercials.

Working to a tight deadline in order to have the spot ready in time for the fast-approaching Christmas toy season, Lightbox animation director Greg Duffell, who had worked with Zeddy in the past, made his first attempt at recycling some old work, modifying and altering it and adding in new bits to fit the storyboard.

Since the earlier spots were cel animated and shot on 35mm film, all new animation had to be done the conventional way – preparing the artwork, shooting on film, then transferring and compositing all elements with the live action on a Henry.

In this spot, the animated character flies through the store, acting as a consistent thread that weaves together shots of the store and moments of interaction between himself, shoppers, children ogling the latest Toyland offerings and the store clerks.

The spot was shot over two days at a Zellers superstore in Ajax, Ont., which Apple Box director Dan Izzard says is comparable in size to Terminal 3 at Toronto’s Pearson International Airport.

Lighting the immense store and showing the broad range of merchandise without making it look like ‘vast miles of sameness’ presented the director with a challenge.

In order to track the flight path of Zeddy throughout Toyland, some graceful ‘Tinkerbell-like’ flying movements were required. An aero-crane modular unit with a power pod remote hot head was called into action, allowing them to whip around the store with greater mobility and capture high and low angles with very little turnaround time. The power pod also allowed dop Nick Allen Woolfe to perform remote tilts, pans, focuses and zooms from different locations in the store.

While the power pod is not new it is continuously being refined, says Izzard. ‘It is a beautiful tool and is as much of a revolution as the Steadicam was when it first came out.’

A prism lens was also used to pick up ultra-low angles without having to deal with the actual mass of the camera.

To make the spot’s young actors understand where Zeddy would be relative to the camera and to get them to interact with something they could not see, teddy bears were fastened to grip stands and sticks and moved through the shots.

The two-day dusk-to-dawn shoot had the folks at Apple Box prepared with cots for seven tired young stars who might need to nap, but according to Izzard, the kids’ energy levels stayed high and their excitement at staying up all night worked to his advantage.

‘The novelty of the overnight shoot was actually a huge factor in their energy level,’ says Izzard. ‘As the night went on they were more conscious that this was something they had never done before and they really enjoyed the fact that they were going to watch the sun go down and come up again.’

The spot was through Zellers Direct. Zellers director of sales and marketing was David Middleton and Laurie Maxwell was the producer. Apple Box executive producer was Barbara Walker, with Ainsley Creighton line producer. Lightbox producer was Mary Young and Denis Takacs edited at Smash.