Client: OregonSaves
Agency: Cappelli Miles
Role: Creative, Direction, Production
Date: Spring 2019
THE PITCH
OregonSaves is an innovative product put on by the State of Oregon itself. It allows any employer access to a 401k retirement savings plan put on by the state, cutting down on costly retirement account fees and allowing better benefits for Oregonians. I put together four different ideas to pitch to the State Department but the one they liked the best was “Moneytree.” I had this idea for a stylized 3D timelapse of a tree planted by a young girl, who comes back decades later to reveal her tree has grown substantially, filled with stacks of bills. The tagline: “Because money doesn’t… you know!”
The other key aspect of the OregonSaves retirement plan is its hands-off approach to investments using robo-portfolios, so I proposed the idea of little “OregonSaves robots” who would be tending the tree for the girl while she was away, watering it when young, cleaning leaves in the fall, building a shelter in the winter, and finally trimming it in the spring. I also wanted to create a Seussian-style world where the city was growing behind the girl along with her tree, featuring little buildings that grew and shaped themselves as time progressed. The team loved this creative approach and gave me and my team the green light to proceed.
The client pitch document I created for the spot
The approved 30s script
PRODUCTION
There was a lot of moving parts in this particular project, from needing to create a “timelapse” feel of a growing tree from sapling to final form, as well as some character and robot design, character animation, and lighting logistics to discover. I directed a team of technical artists and even contributed animation and lighting cues myself, in addition to doing all the sound design. It was a lot of work to complete in just 8 short weeks!
The original animatic storyboard created to show our proof of concept.
Initial test animation of the stages of the tree as it grows. We had to make sure it felt like the same tree throughout its growth process.
Test of one of the background buildings and the snow that builds up on it during the “snow” part
Animation tests before lighting had been finished
We needed the animation elements to feel “timelapsey” but also wanted to avoid significant changes that would ruin the idea of growth over time, so our timelapse happens in seasonal stages, like a ‘supercut’ of timelapses.
LIGHTING
Lighting proved to be one of the biggest challenges. I used a series of HDRI timelapse sequences captured around the world, then edited them together like video footage to create the different lighting effects (morning, stormy, night, sunset) that would feature in the spot. I used HDRI images so we could also use the high dynamic range to project lighting onto the scene itself. Above is a few frames of the HDRI sequence that was used in the spot. The video shows the final sequence throughout the spot. Note the different themes that occur in each ‘beat’ of the video. These themes are reflected in the sky!
PROGRESSION REEL
The progression reel highlighting the various stages from storyboard, initial tests, lighting and particle system integration, and final lighting.