Press Release from MPC

Simon Ratigan has directed McDonald’s latest spot, a celebration of Britain’s weather highlighting the all-important role of local farms. ‘Weather’ was produced by Claire Taylor at Leo Burnett and Lisa Trnovski at HLA.  MPC created the animated weather icons and carried out extensive composting.

As well as sourcing the majority of its ingredients from the UK and Ireland, McDonald’s has committed to raising awareness of the vital role of British farms. The commercial delivers on this promise with a celebration of British weather and its importance to our farmers.

Filmed on location in Derbyshire, Cumbria and Staffordshire at farms supplying McDonald’s with organic milk, free-range eggs and potatoes respectively, it celebrates the role of the British farms which supply many of the quality ingredients for McDonald’s food.

The ad visually mixes the real world with the world of weather icons. It depicts the sun icon rising over the sea, children playing with giant rain icons and lightening icons striking over fields. The film concludes by showing viewers some of the farms that provide McDonald’s with potatoes for their fries, free range eggs for their McMuffins and organic milk for their milk bottles.

MPC’s team led by Rob Walker was responsible for creating the 3D weather icons to illustrate the unpredictable British weather. MPC’s FX Studio used the 2D graphics supplied by the Creatives to create and animate the 3D icons on Cinema 4D. The 3D icons were then integrated to the backplates shot in the Lake District, using Flame and AfterFX.

Paul Harrison added the master grade.

The 60: commercials and cutdowns will be on air from 8th July 2010.

Credits

Director: Simon Ratigan
Agency: Leo Burnett, London
Creatives: Richard Robinson, Graham Lakeland
Agency Producer: Claire Taylor
Production Company: HLA
Executive Producer: Mike Wells
Producer: Lisa Trnovski
DOP: Martin Hill
Offline Editor: Adam Spivey @ The Quarry

Post-Production: MPC
Producer: Abisayo Adejare
VFX Supervisor: Rob Walker
VFX Team: Lisa Ryan, David Ince, Russell Etheridge, Stephen Perkins
Telecine: Paul Harrison