All Hands On Board For Palmolive
The Animation House in Toronto recently completed animation on Colgate Palmolive's latest 30-second spot titled "After Dinner Debate," by way of Canadian agency Young & Rubicam, Toronto. Styled after a 50's sitcom, "After Dinner Debate" features The Cuticles, a typical family sitting around the dinner table arguing about who is going to do the dishes. But instead of arguing about who has to do them, the argument is who gets to do them, because of course, the Cuticle family is a family of talking hands, and they all want their "hands" in the Palmolive. The Cuticles are brought to life with 2D animated facial features on live-action hands and arms. Animation House's Bob Fortier directed both the live-action and the animation, making sure the sets, props, lighting and wardrobe maintained the original concept of a retro sitcom, right down to the laugh track. 2D character animation and 3D stylized soap bubbles were animated over the live-action and careful attention was taken to integrate the characters into the live back-plates using up to six levels of tone, highlight and shadows. 2D ink and paint was completed using US Animation, 3D elements were done in Maya and compositing was done in After Effects. Other credits for the spot include agency producer Christine Stephens, creative directors Doug Bramah and Brett Channer, art director Allan Mah, writer Patrick Scissons, executive producer Michael Crabtree, producer Kelly Graham, animators Pat Knight, Jen Sherman and Fred Wilmot and composite artist Francois Valentyne.