Client: OregonSaves
Agency: Cappelli Miles
Role: Creative, Direction, Production
Date: Summer 2020
THE PITCH
After the massive success of the Moneytree Campaign, the State of Oregon was back with a request for a followup campaign. I pitched being able to continue the adventures of the girl seen at the beginning of the Moneytree, but featuring her more prominently this time. I had the idea for “Moneyflies” after seeing a dollar bill folded up like an origami crane. I thought - why not make it feel like she’s capturing these butterflies made out of money to put them to use in her retirement?
I had the idea of her net growing and expanding as she caught more and more, before finally revealing her as the older version of herself with a huge net full of butterflies, that she attaches to a hot air balloon and uses the lifting power of the butterflies to literally fly off into the sunset. The Treasury loved my idea, and so production began!
The simple text-based pitch I used, with Moneyflies being “Idea 2”
The moodboard I had put together for references
PRE-PRODUCTION
Unlike the timelapse nature of Moneytree, Moneyflies needed an entire sequence worth of animation. I turned to Birte Niedermyer, an incredibly talented German animator to bring to life our heroic girl, as well as the delicate and beautiful nature of the butterflies she would catch. We also brought back a more realized version of the OregonSaves robots from the Moneytree spot, this time helpfully giving our girl the tool she needed to grow her savings - the magical OregonSaves net.
With three months of production time to complete the entire spot, it was ‘go time’.
We had to more fully develop our girl character. Instead of her just being onscreen for less than three seconds like she was in the previous spot, she would be the star of the show.
We had to work on her key poses to make sure her attitude was conveyed over the shots. “Casual, fun, confident” was the direction I gave.
In the early stages of the storyboard, we knew there were a lot of complex factors going into this spot. From the character animation, to the complex spin + growing net, the hot air balloon full of butterflies… it was a lot to do!
Establishing a warm, happy, beautiful color palette was very important.
PRODUCTION
We built a custom rig and model for our hero girl, including the ability to make her stylized hair behave correctly. With lots of feedback from our animator!
Building a lush grassy plain was key to the project. We experimented with all kinds of grass particle systems and designs to make sure we could get nice, wavy textures while hitting the performance requirements needed for rendering.
The Money Butterflies were key to the whole project. Getting them right was crucial.
I had our technical designer build the butterflies with simple rigs, and then animate their wings in four ways: slow, medium, fast. We then built a Boids-based particle system that would attract the butterflies towards or away from an object, giving us control of the swarm when the hero girl is chasing them.
The particle system we built for the final shot was something I’m really proud of. It looks like something between Oregon and the Alps. It perfectly nailed the idyllic end sequence, just needed a sunset and a balloon made of butterflies!
One of my favorite little touches was the “Moneyfly” that lands on the OregonSaves logo at the end. Along with the tagline I wrote: “Start your collection today.”
FINAL RESULT
