In a busy factory just North of Nowhere, ‘one man devotes his life to dreaming up new ways to tickle the tongue and blow the minds of even the most experienced candy lovers.’ He’s ‘Willy Wonka, after all.’

In a funky loft in downtown Toronto, Head Gear animation director Julian Grey tries to think of new ways of combining different types of animation and spent the last two months bringing a model candy factory to life for a 30-second spot for Nestle Canada’s Willy Wonka Nerds, Sweet Tarts and Fun Dip.

The brightly colored spot gives the candy connoisseur an inside look at the place where Willy Wonka sweets are made, a place where gum chews itself and a contraption exists for manufacturing chocolate socks.

But even Willy can make mistakes, and while some confections aren’t good enough for his stamp of approval, such as the little plasticine blobbies which appear at the beginning of the spot, sooner or later he always triumphs, as did Grey with an action-packed, eye-catching spot.

The project started off on a high note when some rudimentary boards came through on the fax from agency MacLaren McCann showing the animator the inner workings of the factory. While Grey says the creative on the boards was not very clear, it was the words written on the page (in addition to the sugar from all the comp candy) that got his blood boiling.

‘They wrote `stop motion’ on the fax, which instantly connotes a good time to a stop-motion animator, because it means lots of cool gadgets, things to invent and an environment you can create,’ says Grey.

The director visually tied the action to the narrative, weaving together a story in 25 seconds (the last five seconds were used to show the candy).

Grey designed the models with visions of ‘bright plasticy things [in mind], ya know, like those pineapples with the powder in them,’ and took his creations to Brian Kohl who modeled some vibrant green and pink plastic vats, control panels and pipes, making the factory look like a toy itself with a syrupy-sweet, sugary appearance.

‘The problem with many candy commercials,’ according to Grey, ‘is they tend to be too rainbow bright with colorful sparkles, so you can’t figure out what’s going on. They kind of overdo it.’ But a good can of dulling spray removed the glare and gave the models a true candy-wrapper look.

The goal was to cover one or two scenes a day, which sometimes involved four hours of setting up models, dressing and lighting before any shooting took place.

Much of the shoot was done using ‘control-motion’ moves, Grey’s version of motion control but without the aid of a motion-control camera.

Grey set up a bunch of geared tripods and figured out motion paths, and while he says ‘there was something kind of nice about doing it on the fly,’ he admits it was somewhat tedious and required patience.

‘If something goes wrong with motion control you can always go back and reshoot from whatever frame, but when doing it by hand and you go back to the position, you are slightly off. You have to be really careful.’

‘Factory’ marks Willy Wonka’s premiere performance in a dimensional form, and since Willy’s a long and lanky figure decked out in top hat and tails, Grey’s challenge was to bring him to life and have him wink without making him look ghoulish or scary.

In order to get the wink just right, replacement animation was used, which meant Willy had six completely different faces, one for each stage of his wink. In addition, a black shadow version of Willy was modeled to make shadows as he sneaks around the factory.

Now, as the spot hits the airwaves, the folks at Head Gear continue to devour their never-ending supply of candy as they move on to their next projects, a spot for Ontario Place and a job for Nickelodeon.

Jeremy Benning was cameraman, Flame artist Susan Armstrong handled post at TOPIX/Mad Dog and The Einstein Bros. added the sounds.

Jeanine Sinopoli produced for Head Gear.

Agency credits go to art director Rose Sauquillo, copywriter Jane Murray and producer Angie Loftus.