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Artem SFX Bring Toys to Life for Mcdonald's First Animated Christmas Advert

Artem SFX Bring Toys to Life for Mcdonald\'s First Animated Christmas Advert
Artem SFX Bring Toys to Life for Mcdonald\'s First Animated Christmas Advert

UK – Artem SFX, an award-winning physical special effects company, helped to create McDonald’s first animated Christmas advert, which tells the festive story of Juliette, the vintage toy doll.

In the advert Juliette sits in the window of a toy shop. As the weeks go by, waiting patiently to be picked she notices all the festive fun happening across the road. As Christmas Eve approaches she takes matters into her own hands running across the snowy road and into McDonald’s. There she locks eyes with the action figure Meteor Mike and hops into the bag to join him.

To create the life-like miniature dolls, Artem’s senior technician Will Wyatt and his team first sculpted the figures in clay. These were then scanned so that joints could be added to the figures to create a wider range of movement and to also finalise the look. Both figures were then 3D printed.

Juliette was completely hand painted, from the facial features and even down to the wooden effect. Her bespoke costume was handmade. Meteor Mike was spray painted, with hand-painted facial features.

Alongside the puppets, Artem also provided all the snow effects for the Christmas advert.

Commenting on the project, Will Wyatt said: “Even though this project caused a lot of sleepless nights and was quite testing, to be a part of a project that utilises Artem’s capabilities successfully is very rewarding.”

Emily Pooley, lead art worker on the dolls added: “I love being able to work on projects that involve miniature characters and puppets and being able to bring them to life. It’s like magic!”

The Artem workshop was in a festive frenzy having also just provided props and snow effects for H&M’s new Christmas advert, ‘Come Together’, directed by Wes Anderson and starring Adrien Brody.  

6th December 2016

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