Psyop celebrates International Women’s Day by reimagining history with women leading us into a brighter future.
Rosa Parks, Megan Rapinoe, Buffalo Calf Road Woman, Amanda Gorman, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Benazir Bhutto, Malala Yousafzi, Greta Thunburg, Frida Kahlo, Transito Amaguana, Helen Zia, Mae Jemison
More than the animated hero piece for LUX’s #IStandWithCaster campaign, Born This Way is a collective statement on how one’s craft can transmit deep emotions and generate empathy towards those fighting the odds, challenging the establishment in the name of equality, and rising above through sheer tenacity.
Produced with their sister company, Final Frontier, and created with agency Wunderman Thompson Singapore, Le Cube presents this cel-animated, action-packed, emotional piece that represents what South African Olympic gold medallist Caster Semenya stands for — fighting for your place in the world, no matter who you are.
Kevin the Carrot is back for his 5th consecutive year in holiday marketing for Aldi thanks to Psyop Founder/Directors Todd + Kylie who gave birth to this anthropomorphized root vegetable 5 years ago and have since proven that sequels can in fact be just as good if not better than the original! This year, partnering with McCann Manchester, they delivered a fresh and creative story that perfectly adds to the Aldi repertoire. Opening with a teaser that pays homage to Top Gun in which Kevin gets lost after falling out of a fighter jet, this festive spot lives up to the hype of its predecessors and is sure to leave fans satisfied. On a mission to be reunited with his family in time for Christmas (a la Home Alone), Kevin treks across a snowy landscape to make his way back home but not without getting into some crazy antics along the way. The film is adventure-filled, heartwarming and of course sprinkled with cultural references, an Oscar-worthy performance by Jim Broadbent as Santa Claus, and subtle nods to other iconic films, E.T. and Pirates of The Caribbean, as always.
In this world, tasting is believing.
Psyop took a walk on the wild side and ventured into Chobani Flavor Country, exploring the exotic flavor characteristics of yogurt like never before. In two documentary-style animations, viewers are taken on a mission to discover the true essence of Chobani, where indulgence is the law of the land and pure ingredients reign supreme.
“As director, it was very important that we illustrated these stories from the animal’s perspective but in a way that stayed true to the fruits’ qualities. We wanted to produce really vibrant images and push the boundaries of what was expected for the brand. It was a really exciting adventure for all parties.”
–Director Borja Peña Gorostegui
The design team crafted lush, hand painted environments for both films, always with the Flavor’s unique lifestyles in mind. Ambient acoustics from Q Department helped augment the Attenborough inspired voice over and the overall tone of the spots, bringing the piece to life.
At the start of April 2020, we were tasked by the creative team at Sedona in collaboration with Che Proximity, to produce an animated story that depicts the unique struggles of people working during this difficult time, specifically young moms. With the goal of shining a light on these unsung heroes, Psyop developed a heartwarming story that captures the intimacy and connection between loved ones that are forced to be apart during these trying times.
The story follows Esme, a nurturing mother, a caregiver, someone that provides for the community. As an essential worker at a market and a new mother, this time is particularly difficult for Esme as she struggles to balance work and life. As her workday unfolds, a pattern and rhythm is developed that highlights the challenging nature of her repetitive and physically demanding job. Esme stocks and restocks the shelves at the market until she is able to steal a moment of privacy in the intimate confines of the storeroom where WhatsApp allows her to connect with her family and be with them.
“We wanted to craft a story that conveyed the intensity of the moment, and the deep importance of feeling connected to loved ones in these times which are often so isolating. It was important to me that the animation be nuanced, reflecting the stillness of our world and the uncanny tension all around us. It was refreshing to see a brief that spoke to the heart of the moment. How people who are otherwise often overlooked in our society have become our heroes.” -Eve Strickman, Executive Producer
The 2D animation and cinematographic style of this piece were very purposefully chosen with the intention of creating a sense of realism similar to live action films. The delicate quality and fine lines of the 2D style perfectly capture the fragility of the world at this moment in time, while the sparing use of camera movement emphasizes the quiet stillness that everyone is feeling around them.
The project’s quick turnaround time combined with having to navigate newfound obstacles that come with working from home were the biggest challenges faced while making this project. The restrictions of Covid, however, allowed for a newly effective working relationship to develop between the studio, agency and client that was much more collaborative and communicative. And despite the time crunch (the project was pitched in only one day over Memorial Day weekend), the team was able to churn out an incredibly powerful piece that speaks to this unique and unparalleled moment in history where time with loved ones has become both precious and uncertain.
“We seek space to console one another in these isolated difficult times. WhatsApp provides us with moments of intimate private connection with our friends and family. Our work, our families, our lives have changed in ways we never would have imagined, and being able to connect one on one, quickly and easily makes navigating these changes a little easier.” – Marie Hyon, Director
On the journey to his afterlife, a hero is lured off his path by evil spirits. Soon a series of events unfold, sure to leave you on the edge of your seat.
In close collaboration with Riot Games, Sun Creature directed and created this three-act short story full of mythical references, unpredictability, drama and of course the mandatory heart-pounding action scenes.
ACT I
Our hero wakes up on a shore confused and scared. As a fox guides him through serene and beautiful nature, we begin to sense an eerie and ominous presence. The world reveals its dark and dangerous sides, as an evil spirit attempts to lure the hero off his path.
ACT II
Our hero steps off his path and is surrounded by darkness immediately. The horrors of his death are revealed to him as the demon feeds on his despair and anger, awaiting the perfect moment to strike.
ACT III
As the two are confronted, darkness dissipates. They are trapped in the hero’s soul, frozen in time. The demon appears out of a sea of anger. The fight is epic and aggressive and the outcome will surprise you.
This project got us excited right from the get-go. The folktale storyworld and the anime style of animation are both near to our hearts, so we didn’t spare any effort making this film as epic as we possibly could.
In close collaboration with Riot Games, Sun Creature directed and created this three-act short story full of mythical references, power, unpredictability, drama and of course the mandatory heart-pounding action scenes.
The three acts each have their own visual expression, mimicking the hero’s emotional state as the narrative progresses.
The visual style is cinematic and inspired by East Asian art and culture, adding history, myth and lore, and creating an array of truly captivating scenarios resembling the feeling of walking through an ancient fable.
We were greatly inspired by anime references known for mixing moments of stillness and contemplation with extreme movement to create contrast and shifts in intensity, giving the film its spectacular and versatile look and feel.
There is Mambo! There are Pink Flamingos, and there’s a taste of all you can do in 140 hours in Miami.
Hyatt’s The Confidante Hotel created a Twitter competition where people would describe their best way to spend 140 hours in Miami. Our job was to give life to the best tweet.
Cartoon Network has always been an inspiration for kids everywhere.
So much so, that even many grown-ups who work in animation do it exactly because of how much they loved Cartoon’s creations when they were young.
That’s why it was such a gigantic honor for us at Le Cube, after we too were not so long ago just kids sitting in front of the TV amazed by what we saw, to create the channel’s 25th-anniversary celebration film.
If you want to take a peep into our souls in one of our projects, this is it. This is the kind of project for which Le Cube exists.
Senna is more than a Formula 1 racer; for Brazilians, he is a hero, an icon of overcoming hardship, stubbornness and good character. Sadly to say, he died young, in a race in 1994. But his legacy lives on. Part of this is thanks to the Senna family who opened an NGO called “Instituto Ayrton Senna”; their mission is to help in the education of Brazilian children and keep the image of Ayrton Senna alive.
For the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, the “Instituto Ayrton Senna”, together with JWT and us (Le Cube), have prepared a beautiful message from Senna to all the Brazilian Olympic athletes, pointing out the importance of winning at home. Ayrton Senna lost eight times before winning the Brazilian GP, and when he did, it was with a lot of effort. Still, he faced it unflinchingly.
Take a look at what is, perhaps, our masterpiece. And, always remember to do your best and put all you have to accomplish what you want, just like Senna.
RGA Shanghai’s latest collaboration with Final Frontier and Le Cube is a berserk animation for Boxing Cat Brewery’s new Amber Lager, a theme-song-cum-opening-credits action film about a superhero cat boxer intent on ridding China’s cities of mundane liquor, one haymaker at a time.
We’re proud to share our latest project made for China with our homies from Final Frontier – a short film for Ritz-Carlton, Sanya made with Saatchi & Saatchi, telling the real story of hotel guest Soviet Cosmonaut Vladimir Kovalenok. It’s a touching tale of love, loss, and soul-searching.
Followfood isn’t just another sustainable food brand; they are a real movement for raising awareness in consumer habits around the world. In this PSA, we teamed up with Tank Tank Hamburg to raise the awareness that food consumption habits matter and change our planet for good or for evil.
For “In Your Hands” film, we developed an art showing a contrast between the sad planet made by bad decisions and the hopeful world in humankind when changing consumption habits for sustainable choices. It was a challenge to don’t end up showing cliche portraits of waste and animal cruelty since they are always so powerful. Who follows Le Cube’s work knows our obsession with elegant designs and fluid movements, so for this animation, we work hard in finding a way to generate bad feelings portraying a sad world but with distinctive designs, with uniqueness and aesthetic solidity. After so many years doing animation, we know clearly that our way to impact the world with powerful and meaningful messages is to show unique designs that transmit Le Cube’s soul and heart.
We hope by watching this film, you give a second thought on the next time you do your groceries, thinking that your choices impact the whole world.
Psyop Directors Marco + Marie take viewers on a sweeping journey through history, space and time. Working with advertising partner Ogilvy & Mather, the film is a gorgeous take on the butterfly effect set off by the first planting of a seed and showing the impact of farming from nourishing the masses to propelling progress across industries.
Built with exquisite detail in CG, the directors took heavy inspiration from photography and brought rich colorful vistas and humanistic portraits into their world of perpetual movement and evolving transitions. They filled that world with hundreds of a characters from not only different cultures but time periods.
From the first story beat of the seed being planted, the visual narrative fluidly transforms and shifts taking the viewer across cultures, continents, from the beginning of time to the modern day – a visual conceptual conceit that pays off the tagline – Keep Growing.
Psyop Directors Marco + Marie take viewers on a sweeping journey through history, space and time. Working with advertising partner Ogilvy & Mather, the film is a gorgeous take on the butterfly effect set off by the first planting of a seed and showing the impact of farming from nourishing the masses to propelling progress across industries.
Built with exquisite detail in CG, the directors took heavy inspiration from photography and brought rich colorful vistas and humanistic portraits into their world of perpetual movement and evolving transitions. They filled that world with hundreds of a characters from not only different cultures but time periods.
From the first story beat of the seed being planted, the visual narrative fluidly transforms and shifts taking the viewer across cultures, continents, from the beginning of time to the modern day – a visual conceptual conceit that pays off the tagline – Keep Growing.
“In the spirit of Albert Einstein, we wanted to create a film that will challenge our imagination. We love the story of Dr. Max Huber and the myth behind his journey to find the cure to heal his burnt skin. We believe the myth is more powerful than the reality. Our film focuses on the poetic legendary tale rather than the reality and its facts. Besides, reality leaves nothing to the imagination. For the first La Mer film, we focused on introducing Dr. Max Huber and telling his story. For the follow up film, we focus mainly on the fascination of exploring the unknown. Curiosity is the key to staying young. And the wonders of nature inspire the curious ones to seek out its secrets, and question what is beyond or beneath the surface. La Mer Part 2 is inspired by light and the transforming effect it has to surfaces. This element of change is magical to us, from the spectacular colorful displays of a sunrise, to the northern lights, to the illumination of light on the surface of water or ice and even beyond the surface. Inspired by Dr. Max Huber, we will tell a story of one traveler who represents us all.”
Marie Hyon
-Marie Hyon, Director
Director
-ALBERT EINSTEIN
“I AM ENOUGH OF AN ARTIST TO DRAW FREELY UPON MY IMAGINATION. IMAGINATION IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN KNOWLEDGE. KNOWLEDGE IS LIMITED. IMAGINATION ENCIRCLES THE WORLD.”
“When The Wonderful Agency and Teleflora approached me with this project, I was captivated by the idea of working on a long format film with such a strong creative potential. It, alloweding me a better flexibility to set the context, the background and to develop in detail the evolution of the main character as we follow this man over a long period of his life -, from his childhood to adulthood. This sequence of “slices of life” reminds me of the introduction to Disney’s film “Up”, where the most important moments in Carl’s life play outfollow one after another.” “It was a rich and challenging experience to see the character’s design evolve throughout the film, both in terms of styling and the ageing of his face, while also working on a range of his multiple expressions.” “I come from 3D, so the creation of this universe in 2D all in black and whiteB&W (with a few brushstrokes of red to highlight the flowers 😉 ) was a great opportunity to create longer shots, a varied cast of various characters and to craftcreate a more elaborated narrative.”
Sun Creature was approached Josh Mullens and Micah Walker, co-founders of the newly opened creative studio and agency, Bear Meets Eagle on Fire, based in Sydney. Having seen Sun Creature’s work on Travel Oregon, they decided a similar Japanese Anime approach would be a great fit for the Optus campaign.
Sun Creature’s Guillaume Dousse co-directed this project with French director and former Pixar animator, Louis Clichy, whose affinity for character driven stories wonderfully complimented Dousse’s experience from working on the Travel Oregon films.
They produced the film in only 7 weeks time and the final product screened in cinemas in Australia as well as on Television and online.
“One of the first movies I ever saw was a horror movie. It was The Exorcist. My dad didn’t know what we were getting into and what we were about to see… Or did he? It was in Korea. I was 8 years old. It was terrifying and yet exhilarating. Marco shares my admiration for this genre, along with first-person shooter games. I guess we are both adrenaline junkies at heart. So when Joonas from Next Games came to us with this opportunity, we jumped at the chance to direct AMC’s The Walking Dead: “Our World,” the augmented reality game trailer.”
“We played a lot of first-person shooter games in our lives and seeing the world like that always gets my adrenaline pumping right away. We used a head mounted camera to get the first-person perspective to blend reality with gaming. I think every gamer will be pretty excited to see this perspective in the real world. In AR games, the real world is combined with CG rendered in real-time. We wanted the walkers in our film to look well integrated, but at the same time look like game assets, keeping them low polygon characters. AR is so fascinating, there will be a lot more coming in the near future…”
“Daydreaming about our world as a zombie-infested post-apocalyptic nightmare is a favorite pre-occupation of the modern world. And we got to help make it a reality! This was an amazing opportunity for us to imagine and create scenarios where the complex and horrifying world of The Walking Dead could break the fourth wall and enter our own. Integrating AMC and Next Games zombies and characters into a real world narrative was a lot of fun, and a rich ground for creative problem solving.This led to creepy lighting scenarios, classic scares and a sense of claustrophobia, panic, and the relief of escaping. It was the perfect mix of storytelling and technology.”
“This game is similar to Pokemon GO, a location based zombie game, where The Walking Dead infestation happens in your world with real world maps. You can fight walkers, rescue and build settlements, collect loot and weapons, unlock characters from the TV show to join your group, and work against other players to regain control of your world. I know I’d be hooked on playing this game once it comes out. Who doesn’t want Daryl to join their group?
We brainstormed on the story thinking about the situations and individuals. What type of change in their character or environment would have occurred when playing the game? We like that the mom is a badass thrill seeker able to wield a samurai sword, and the male nurse in the old folks home intentionally finds a room full of zombies to kill. He’s so stoked to blast them away. The girl in the mini-mart is a bit more timid, but she gets it done too.
We wanted to introduce our heroes in the most mundane, normal, every-day life as possible. To do this, we shot with static cameras to enhance the routine or boredom and have the tension build to a scream. From there we cut to all the first-person POV action shots that feel super dynamic and action-packed. Without the trust and open mindedness of Joonas, Next Games and AMC, this project could not have happened, so we have them to thank.”
A mesmerizing explosion of undulating textures and patterns embody Ecobee’s temperature setting powers.
Inspired by the viral success of their Only Slightly Exaggerated campaign in 2018, Travel Oregon partnered again with Wieden + Kennedy and Psyop to tell part two of this magical tale.
With the creative learnings from the first film, directors Todd & Kylie with animation partners Sun Creature pushed up the dial on the fantasy this round. With more breathtaking vistas and fantastical creatures, hovering just in the liminal space between imagination and reality, Travel Oregon is at once a loving homage to Oregon and a celebration of that exhilarating feeling all travelers experience of the sublime places they carry back in their memories and hearts.
See Case Study
“We had such a wonderful and successful collaboration with Sun Creature and Wieden + Kennedy last year on our Travel Oregon film and it was exciting to rekindle those fires for a second time. This year we were able to launch right into creative development and production because we already had a solid working methodology road tested from the previous year. As well as traveling through some of the beautiful Oregon landscapes we really wanted to expand on the magic and whimsy. We were able to create some great mythical creatures: a rocky turtle island that controls the rising sun, an old bathing tree that feeds the bees, a furry beast that enjoys feasting on doughnuts and majestic cloud giants. It was, once again, an amazing collaboration of incredibly talented artists pouring their passion into every frame and it shows.”
How do you rain death, doom and destruction on history’s most reviled baddie? Sun Creature pushes the absurd with Headless directors Victor and Alfredo for Netflix’s Black Mirror-esq collection of NSFW animated shorts – Love, Death and Robots. Jello molds, robot armies and sex orgies – nothing is out of the question when it comes to taking down the Führer.
“Alternate Histories” crams a lot into seven-and-a-half minutes, and the fact that it does so with such ridiculous bite is a testament to directors Victor Maldonado and Alfredo Torres, here collaborating with Sun Creature Studio and regular series writer Philip Gelatt. It’s proof that Love, Death & Robots is at its finest when it’s short, sweet and satirically nasty.”
-Daily Beast
Saiman Chow digs deep into tropes, jokes and memes, taking viewers on a psychedelic romp through 90’s pop culture for Nike Air Max Day.
Get your eyeballs ready, it’s gonna be a wild ride.
all the pretty designs… you stay on our minds
Killing chickens for eggs? Cluck that! In their first ever brand campaign, the French brand Poulehouse (French for “chicken house”) aims to shake up the egg industry. They are committed to caring for its hens for their entire natural lives. Most farms dispose of hens after 18 months when their egg production starts to drop. In France alone that means up to 50 million chickens a year.
They partnered with Wizz to create a film that follows a group of resourceful hens on a farm that is not a Poulehouse who flock together to rise up against the prevailing farming practices. The entirely 3D film required 3 months of production, using a cartoon style to illustrate a dark reality while leaving a smile on your face.
