Four headless bodies were ordered a la carte from International Rocketship as the visual grab for Star Choice Digital Satellite tv’s latest subscriber-seeking effort.

The single 30-second spot through Simpson Gilbert Chambers, Vancouver, features live-action heads attached to animated bodies residing in a mostly animated world.

‘The animation is pencil drawn in black and white in a very loose style,’ explains Dieter Mueller director of animation and storyboard artist at the Vancouver studio. ‘What we’ve done is shoot the live-action characters and place their heads on top of the drawn characters.’

The drawings were scanned into the US Animation system and digitized at Rainmaker. The live-action portion was composited with the animation via Flame ‘providing all of the magic.’

Agency creative director Colin Thornton says one of the great achievements of this spot is the unique feeling, warmth and mood of it which he says is something that d’esn’t usually accompany computer animation.

‘Technically it’s a superb piece,’ says Thornton. ‘It d’esn’t look slick, you look at the commercial and you just see and hear the characters delivering their narrative without the wizardry of the technology getting in the way.’

While Mueller has worked with marrying live action and animation in the past, making the live action match the animation ­ without having the benefit of seeing the live action first ­ provided a challenge.

‘Basically both were happening at the same time so we had to make sure that we were coordinating what was happening with the live action and the animation since we didn’t have any reference other than the storyboards and our timings.’

Luckily for them, the fact that they were not trying to put together a really slick package meant they didn’t have to go for a perfect match between the heads and the bodies which, according to Mueller, is part of the commercial’s charm.

‘There is a looseness to the whole thing which allows you a certain latitude and flexibility. It was supposed to have a handmade look to it.’

Besides the heads, the only other live action in the spot comes in on the television screen that a suburban couple are watching in their home.

The footage on the tube will be as crisp and pristine as possible, since that’s what the client selling, and it will pop out from the rest of the spot.

According to Thornton the advert is coming off exactly as originally envisioned which, he says, d’esn’t happen very often. ‘Right from the pre-production meeting everything has been right in line.’

Director of live-action for the spot was Fred Frame from Apple Box, with Ron Williams as dop. Julie Moreton was the Rocketship producer. Dan Collins and Kiyoshi Kohatsu handled the animation. Sound design and mix were done by Ted Bishop of Teddy Bear Productions and post was handled by Rainmaker and Gastown Post.