September 26th, 2008
DDB Helsinki had previously commisioned the illustrator Britt Spencer (www.brittspencer.com) to draw a series of cartoons for Sandels beer. Once Art Director Jukka Mannio got onboard the project he wanted to bring the campaign to life with a more interesting approach to the pictures, instead of just placing the product shot in the corner and calling it a day.
We started working on the series by experimenting with different kinds of table surfaces for the background. First up were the usual suspects like oak and maple, then we tried some really old dry desaturated woods, but nothing really seemed to hit the spot. Incidentally Piñata Producer Johanna Luoto owns a gorgeous antique wood table she had kindly enough brought to our studio. "I had a can of Sandels on the table and noticed how well both the colour and the style suited what I was looking for in the picture", says Rami Riihijärvi.
So we shot the texture off our kitchen table and started building the background from it. We also photographed and scanned some old-style hand-made sheets of paper to build the right kind of feel for the cartoons. A bunch of paper tears were also photographed and composited on the pictures along with Tuomas Korpi hand painting some details.
The table, papers and beer cans were all modeled and rendered in 3D to get the right mood of lighting. "Realistic cans and bottles with water drops are a bit of a challenge to do in 3D, but we have a lot of experience of how it is done", says Rami. "It's actually a great way of doing beverage photos since adding a new etiquette design is easy even after a series has been complete for a while. Not that Sandels comes up with a new flavor every two weeks, but the cider people do."
Every picture in the series had some effects in it: fire, steams and smoke, scratch marks and teardrops. Some of them were made in 3D, some with photographs and stock material. "We already had a piece of fur ready since there was an initial idea to have some loose fur in the bear picture.", says Rami. "Then Jukka and Antti Salminen of DDB came up with the idea of really strong scratch marks on the table, and they worked great by themselves."
After all the smoke had cleared, it was the simple idea of a blue table that really brought the series together and made it what it is. "I was really happy Jukka and Antti saw the blue table the same way we did", says Rami. "It was anything but obvious. Since we had talked about antique wood, everyone was tuned into shades of brown and grey from day one."
Credits
Client: OlviAgency: DDB Helsinki
Creatives: Jukka Mannio, Antti Salminen, Mika Wist
Account Director: Anne Aikala
Account Manager: Jonna Immonen
Illustration: Britt Spencer