THE FASTEST SELLING SNACK FOOD OF ALL TIME
OREO x pokemon
Pokémon's 25th anniversary
Meant that the gaming franchise joined forces with OREO to create co-branded, limited-edition Pokémon cookie packs
Working alongside creative agencies 360i and Media Monks, Timothy Williams and the Framestore team was tasked with creating a celebratory film featuring beloved character Pikachu. No other offical chatacters were allowed so we had to make our own. And it not only had to be authentic to the original Pokémon animation style but also made entirely from thousands of black-and-white
"cookie pixels."
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Client: Oreo/Mondelez
Agency: 360i
Creative Director: Michael Schachtner
Agency: Media Monks
Producers: Andrew May, Kent SmithVFX: Framestore
Executive Producer: Larissa Berringer
Head of Production: Cat Pavitt
Producer: Samantha Wong
Creative Director: Timothy Williams
Head of CG: Jordan Carroll
CG Lead: Daniel Bruce
Compositing Lead: Joseph Taylor
Illustrators/Cel Animation: Harry Teitelman, Ali Beisber, Mo Yang
Designers: Gabriel Perez, Will Golladay
Animation: Jordan Harris, Edwin Schaap
CG Team: Chris Friesen, CK Lu, Femi Aroyewun
Online Editor: Stephen Cheatum.
Flame: Serina Flores
OVER 600 FRAMES - OVER 75M Digital Oreos
Beginning with a rough edit in After Effects that utilized reference footage provided by Pokémon, Cel Animators got to work hand drawing characters and environments in over 600 frames. From there, the frames were brought into Houdini to be processed and turned into the pixel grid, continuously challenging the team to strike a perfect balance between pixels large enough to be recognizable as cookies while maintaining a tight grid that preserved the fidelity and details of the drawings.
“This project was a fantastic opportunity to play in the world between custom hand drawn animation and complex CG builds,” said Framestore Creative Director Timothy Williams. “An incredibly talented team combined a story-focused approach with precise technical execution.
A unique visual approach to two of the world’s most instantly recognizable brands.
Early Development Images
Houdini Exploration
Every frame was hand drawn
We created a brand new Pokemon trainer, Dakota, and then fleshed out the world around her. Every background, building, blade of grass, every image of Pikachu, and every dynamic image of Dakota were hand drawn. First as sketches. Then as clean line art. That is then translated into cookies. Around every 4-8 pixels in the line art became a cookie. Every cookie was either cream up to represent white, or biscuit up to represent black. 7000 cookies in every frame. 24 frames per second. That is around 8 million cookies. But whose counting?
DENTSU CASE STUDY
100+ unused Explosion tests
Not every idea makes it into the final edit. With such a wildly talented group of houdini artsits working on this spot we had the chance to try over 100 explosion ideas after Pikachu attacks. I finally had to make the decision to cut the explosion. It slowed the edit too much and even though the client was still on the fence this moment would have created a pause that would have been hard to ignore. Enjoy one of the final tests that ALMOST made it in. All credit to Chris Friesen from Framestore Chicago.
Nominations
2022 Cannes Lion Shortlist (x2)
2022 One Show Merit (x3)
2022 Webby Honoree
2022 One Show Shortlist (x11)
2022 ADC Shortlist (x6)
Awards
2021 Epica Winner Bronze
2022 Andy Winner - Craft
2022 Clio - Bronze - Brand Partnership
2022 Clio - Bronze - Branded Entertainment
2022 ADC - Bronze
2022 Webby - Branded Animation
2022 Webby - Peoples Choice Branded Video
2022 AICP Winner - Integrated Campaign
2022 Effie - Bronze Snacks & Desserts