For the new generation of Canadian film buffs, Taxi Advertising has made sure ‘The Fly’ means more to moviegoers than a bug buzzing around crying ‘Help me.’ Now, thanks in part to Flashcut’s Gord Koch and Command Post/TOYBOX senior Inferno artist Jeff Campbell, a new fly is being served up to get us hyped for the film to come.

Until it is battered, crushed and killed for our amusement, of course.

‘The Fly’ is a new theatrical spot from Taxi’s Paul Lavoie and Zak Mroueh, which is presented by client Cineplex Odeon before its feature presentations. It is therefore purposely cinematic and features a single wayward housefly buzzing around a kitchen. Our protagonist stops on the kitchen table to take a drink from a spilled puddle, only to be whacked several times by a flyswatter. He manages to sadly squeak out a few bars of Tell Laura I Love Her between swats before drawing his last pathetic breath.

If you’re a fly lover, try to avoid this one. However, if bugs ain’t your thing, it’s a very funny spot, thanks to some creative cutting, pasting and posting performed by Campbell and Koch.

Editor Koch says the spot was a learning experience. Although it encompassed the challenges that come with the rules of editing, it was the first time he’d had a crack at a cinema ad.

‘That was a bit of a new experience for me,’ says Koch. ‘There were some technical specifications that were different from doing a spot for television that [had to be] taken into consideration. There is a frame rate difference and the way to transfer properly to get the best resolution on the screen. [Then there was] the way your movements would alter and the timings of the movements once you got into the conversion from the frame rate. There was a bit of nuancing there, making sure things were coming up the way they were in your original cut.’

He says the biggest hurdle was cutting for the size of the screen.

‘When you are cutting a spot for television, you are seeing how it will look on air as you cut it,’ says Koch. ‘Here you had to envision it on a screen hundreds of times larger than the monitor you’re watching. You had to convince yourself that it was really going to come through.’

According to Koch, Lavoie gave him about 4,000 feet of film to contend with on behalf of mysterious Avion Films director Mr. Voila and DOP Stan Mestel. There were multiple takes to wade through to get the fly’s movements exactly as the creatives envisioned them. Although Flashcut has recently upped its profile with a series of post jobs for Clearnet – all of which feature animals – this was Koch’s first time on critter detail.

Koch says Campbell, who also worked with Flashcut on the aforementioned Clearnet campaign, single-handedly gave the fly personality.

‘He worked some incredible magic using the real-life bugs and animating them – making them move and behave in certain ways,’ says Koch. ‘It was fairly challenging from that point of view, to follow the progression when they weren’t really doing that [particular action]. Also, [it took] a bit of faith from everybody that Jeff could actually pull it off once we had an idea what the fly was going to do.’

After Koch’s cut, Campbell let loose on the fly, matching its final leg movements with the voice-over, resulting in a very dramatic demise.

‘I did everything in high-def on the Inferno, adding general character to the fly,’ says Campbell. ‘We moved his head around and replaced all the arms with digital arms, but we tried to keep as much of the real fly as possible and manipulate the real thing.’

Campbell was responsible for all the character animation, rig removal, morphing, warping and comping of reflections on ‘The Fly.’ He says he has a longstanding relationship with the folk at Taxi, so they understand the work that goes into the spots from his side and take that into consideration when imposing deadlines.

Campbell says he spent three days with his Inferno and the footage.

‘All the spots [I do for Taxi] are character animation, so it really takes a lot of time,’ he says. ‘That is why Inferno is great – you have the speed to try different variations and nuances. [The Taxi creatives] are good with that because they want to really perfect it, just like I do. That’s why they like coming here.’ *