British Heart Foundation / Mending Broken Hearts

Daniel Barber, director of the BHF spots said; "When the script for the British Heart Foundation arrived from Grey, I knew immediately it would be a real challenge to combine great performance and great post production. Freefolk are rare talents; I knew immediately they were the go-to company. The ad is testament to what can be achieved with great post production, and a little direction from me!"

To produce a photo realistic talking fish for the commercials we bought in real Zebra fish that are now resident in the 3D department, allowing Harin to obtain hi-res stills, video footage and invaluable animation reference.

The model was created in Maya and refined in Mudbox. The fish was then animated in Houdini and passed back to Maya for lighting and rendering. We created underwater HDRI's at the London Aquarium to assist lighting due to the reflective nature of the Zebra fish scales.

A previs was created using the offline footage, dubbed with Andy Serkis' VO. This helped define the character, speech and movements required. A balance had to be stuck between believability and performance, with the model and appearance being carefully adapted throughout.

The ad was shot at the London Aquarium. Jason Watts, lead 2D artist on the project worked closely with Harin and Sally both through the animation stage and for the final compositing and look of the commercials.