How did you coordinate between the cel and 3D animation?
The first step was to choose a design for the character. Russell Brooke, who co-directed the spot with me, did dozens of designs for the folks at BBH to look at. It did not take us long to settle on our final character, whom we decided was a good balance between charming and industrious. As I built the story boards I worked with Russell to make sure that our character would feel “comfortable” performing all of his tasks as he builds the car. As we went into 3D design the 2D animators were able to use printed frames of the animatic to estimate how the character would look on the form. When a piece of the 2D animation was finished we would UV map it onto the 3D animation and move it around until it fit appropriately. Were any elements shot or was it all 3D? What software was used? The final spot is a combination of live action (filmed) environment, 3D animation and 2D cel animation. Nothing in the final product was shot practically. However, I did shoot a lot of little stop-motion tests
