THE IDEA
Back in the days when pumpkin spice was commonly used as a prescription drug against November blues, our team was debating what kind of celebration project was still possible to wrap up before Christmas.
Many melancholic, touching ideas later, after tireless brainstorming, we came to the conclusion that the winter holiday project should be, well, merry and joyful, with the universal message: when life gives you l̶e̶m̶o̶n̶s̶ eggs, make an eggnog!
THE APPROACH
The little surprise we gave ourselves was approaching the narration with our favorite visual and motion styles, creating a few silly-sweet 'Christmas Nightmare' stories!
And boom! A sprinkle of semi-retro typography and cheerful, minimal characters, finished with dynamic, creative motion. It was all wrapped within simplified polaroid frames suitable for social media resolutions to resemble our cherished memories the stories are based on.
THE VOICES
… Are ours! What seemed to be the biggest challenge, turned out to be the greatest FUN! All of the Pigeons were briefed on how to record their voices at home, with fluffy socks over phones to imitate the feeling of professional audio recordings. Some natural-born talents were discovered along the way and inspired us to literally use our voices in further (even commercial!) projects!
THE CHARACTERS AND THE MOTION
Since our stories were based on the characters, we all knew that bringing our characters to life must be a key.
The animation was created in After Effects. Almost all character rigs and animations were made in Moho, with beautiful touches of frame-by-frame character animation.
THE CONTENT
Along with the animated stories, we created tons of social media materials, such as instagram reels, carousels, posts, tolls and more, to make sure they reach you when you're sleeping and know when you're awake 😀 In all seriousness: we went on a mission to spread the ‘chill and be merry’ vibe throughout different platforms!
THE CHALLENGES
1. The DEADLINE.
At the beginning of December, we happily assumed we’ll be able to deliver FOUR animations and additional social media graphics before Christmas. Roughly by the 10th of Dec. life has already reconsidered our assumptions, and so did we, sticking with three stories. Although we were working hard and fast on the project, one of the reasons we just couldn’t make it four was…
2. Creating literally everything IN-HOUSE.
We had to master our voice and compositing sound skills, find some time to record a ‘tenth version of chill awwwwww VFX’ and work on our commercial projects as well.
3. When it comes to VO
At first we really thought it would be best to tell each story only with visuals, using our voices just for the VFX layer. But further and further into the project, we started discovering how cool it was to add some spice by commenting on action or voice-dubbing characters. We didn’t have the VO or any puns written, though, so we were brainstorming during the recording time. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t, but overall…
It was an important and quite unusual experience for all of us. It gave us a chance to let go a bit during the creative process, which enabled us to come up with new, fresh ways to overcome obstacles.
While we succeeded as a team, we also missed as a team, and thanks to both we learned something!
THE TEAM
Art Director: Romka Kapusta
Lead Animator: Wojtek Siejak
Production Manager: Martyna Bobrowska
Production Manager: Martyna Bobrowska
Script/Ideas: Romka Kapusta, Wojtek Siejak, Martyna Bobrowska, Sara Marinoni, Kasia K. Pieróg
Illustrations: Romka Kapusta, Kasia K. Pieróg
Animation: Wojtek Siejak, Sara Marinoni, Kasia K. Pieróg
Sound Design: Romka Kapusta, Wojtek Siejak
VO: Studio Pigeon Team
Christmas animation, christmas animated gif, christmas humor, christmas animated gif with sound, christmas animated characters, funny christmas, christmas vibes
