Specsavers ‘Rapunzel’

KITCHEN retells the classic tale of Rapunzel, inspired by the animated films of yesteryear.

The brief was to show how Specsavers were able to offer home eye tests for those who cannot easily travel to a store, in a fun and engaging way. Specsavers were keen to show this fairytale world in a traditional hand drawn style taking inspiration from early-animated films.

Initially a rough thumbnail board outlining the action was created, which was then taken into the animatic stage. This gave the opportunity to tweak and re-order shots until a good flow to the narrative was achieved.

Character development:
Character designer Jacob Merrick-Wolf, began working up the initial designs for the Knight, his trusty steed and Rapunzel. The aim was to keep the classic fairytale of damsel in distress and knight in shining armour whilst steering away from Disney to make them unique to Specsavers and this commercial.

Environment Development:
When thinking of the overall look and feel of the commercial, it was decided fairly early on to concentrate a lot of the detail into the background environments and to keep the characters more stripped back, with flat shading along with a simple shadow and highlight pass.

This allowed Chervelle Fryer – one of Jelly London’s ‘Future’s’ illustrators – to create a world which is rich with texture and detail, bringing the initial background sketches to life with an impressive level of realism and a beautiful colour palette.

Animation:
The nostalgic, handmade quality to the film was achieved through traditional 2D cel animation. The shots were broken down and worked out that the majority would be animated by hand with the remaining scenes being done in After Effects. 3D was then used to bring the tower to life and give it more depth.

As shots were approved the compositing stage was began, which allowed the tying together of the 2D animated character sequences with the background elements. Subtle lighting effects and an initial grade in the edit were subsequently added. Once approved the commercial was finished up at Nice Biscuits alongside the clients for the final colour grade.