Ratatouille
Jack Jack vs. Raccoon
Be Our Guest
Shapes
Bad Luck Brian
Breakout
Wrestler
Flip The Fans
L’assaut
Fly To The Stars
Better You, Better Tomorrow
Teamfight Tactics Vegas Open
2024 Reel
Ignite
Kill Code – Part 3
Kevin and the Christmas Factory
Opposites React
Four for the Holidays
In 2014, Argonaut approached Psyop to help develop a cast of quirky animated characters for Cricket Wireless to be the brand’s spokespeople. In the years that followed, this cast of characters grew, as did Cricket’s unaided brand awareness (which rose by 12 points). With fan bases of their own – our CG characters were mini-celebrities in their own rights.
The Ask
For their Holiday 2018 campaign, Cricket challenged us to think of a way to take our now familiar characters and use them to engage audiences in new and surprising way.
Our Approach
Psyop collaborated closely with Argonaut, Shareability and Cricket to bring the beloved characters out of the animated world and into the real one via a multi-faceted approach:
1. A Hollywood-glam, 3-min film and content blurring the lines of commercial and entertainment co-directed by Psyop founder Marco Spier and Psyop’s rising star Jack Anderson.
2. Magical activations that blurred fantasy and reality helmed by Jack.
Using our real-time animation system utilizing Intera/Mocap suits and face tracking technology, we hosted a Facebook Live and Twitter press junket featuring CG characters Dusty and Rose alongside celebrity Mario Lopez making it the first time an animated character appeared alongside a live person in real-time.
We also used this system again in a responsive OOH billboard activation where holiday shoppers could talk, direct and interact with Rosie, making a traditionally passive medium – the billboard – larger than life.
A Christmas Carrot: A Tale by Charles Chickens
If there’s a character you should root for this holiday season, it’s the award-winning Kevin the Carrot who is back and better than ever with Aldi UK. Six years on, and everyone’s favorite festive vegetable is still as fresh as when he first appeared on our screens. ‘A Christmas Carrot: A Tale by Charles Chickens’ is the latest installment in heart-warming journeys Kevin has embarked on for the better part of the last decade. In the film brought to life by Psyop founders/directors Todd and Kylie, along with Psyop co-director Kyle Cassidy, through McCann UK, Kevin teaches Ebanana Scrooge, and us all, about the true spirit of Christmas.
“We fell in love with this project from the very moment we saw it. Come on, a carrot who wants to meet Santa… What’s not to like? Our goal with everything we direct is to get the viewers to feel something. Not exactly an easy thing to do inside sixty seconds. In any case, hopefully people will come away feeling some Christmas spirit.”
-Todd + Kylie, Directors
Life on Treat Street
Apex Legends: Emergence Launch Trailer
A Voice Is All You Need: Katy Perry “Cozy Little Christmas”
Ball Whisperer
Holiday Gift Card
Wintertale
Shhhh
National Institute of Yerba Mate
Escher’s Box
Syndrome
Rappi
Spring
Diamond Breeze
Parakeet
The Super Duper Minecraft Musical
“We got the script from 215 McCann to create a musical, which of course is such an exciting prospect because the nature of musicals is just so playful and inventive. Creating this sort of musical theme around Minecraft felt appropriate because the nature of Minecraft is to be so playful. We see our singer come out, the curtains open, and then all of a sudden we see this beautiful Minecraft world. Something we’ve always enjoyed doing at Psyop is to invent new ways to create a voice for different brands.”
-Director Kylie Matulick
“One of the things we loved about this is that you start from literally a sketch on a piece of paper. then we have designers do a style frame where it’s a full color sketch. Then we start working with set designers and they start building the things that were in the sketch. We’d seen everything grow from figment to fulfillment, and then Melissa (Benoist, star of Supergirl) gets there and starts performing, it just brings all this life to it. It was breathtaking. Our highest personal accolade is when our commercials are entertainment. So how do we expand the brand’s identity and package it into a beautiful commercial? Hopefully that’s what we’ve done!”
-Director Todd Mueller
AWARDS
WEBBY AWARDS – “Best Animated Film (Branded)” – Nominee
PROMAXGAMES AWARDS – “Best TV or Theatrical Ad – Nominee
IN THE PRESS
Adweek: Minecraft’s Upgraded Look Is So Special, They Made a Glee-Caliber Musical About It
Ad Age: Minecraft Made a Musical to Promote its ‘Super Duper Graphics Pack’
Mashable: Minecraft Goes Musical with Supergirl to Promote Its Graphics Pack
Apex Legends: Legacy Launch Trailer
Clash of Clans: Bye Bye Builder!
Clash Royale: Star Levels
“With this quality of animation, they’ll earn millions by making a movie”
-Thanos, Perceptive and Absolutely Correct YouTube commenter
Clashmas: Log’s Revenge
Mass Effect Trailer
Snowbuddy
Clash Royale: The Last Second
It’s In Our Spirit
“We wanted to create a call to action, to break out of our lockdown screen obsessions and take a breath, a whiff, a step into reality to look around and appreciate the real world and real people around us.”
Answers
Sorcerer’s Arena: Villains
REAL TIME CHARACTERS
Christmas 2020: Journey
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.
Ecotherapy
Lost and Crowned
Dive Into Anything
Free Your Ideas
Animation is fun right? Directing and design is fun right? Absolutely! But like all creative work, it isn’t always easy. The creative process isn’t a nine to five. Sometimes ideas won’t give you a moment of peace, sometimes ideas disappear before you can grasp them, only to be found again at two am when you’re trying to sleep. ProtoPie understands this. It’s a tool built by creatives, for creatives. So when they approached us to make a film all about the highs and lows of the creative process, what was our answer? Absolutely!
Piper’s Sugar & Spice!
Baldur’s Gate III
Nose Job
Whole New World
Great Big Network
Rush Wars
Clash Royale: Elixir Golem
Lineage Red Knights
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.
Music Development
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.
Trompos
Want
React
Clash of Clans: Magic Show
Clash of Clans: Party Wizard
Hiyee
Master
A mesmerizing explosion of undulating textures and patterns embody Ecobee’s temperature setting powers.
Maestro
Potato Heads
Opening Credits
No Time to Explain
To Die For
Plain
In “Plain,” for Greek dairy company, Fage, Psyop was forced to rethink its pipeline when they discovered they would only be allotted two short weeks of post-production time. By approaching most of the shots in-camera and integrating CG only when absolutely necessary, the team of artists rose to the challenge and created a piece that is not only hauntingly beautiful, but a testament to their ingenuity. – Motionographer
The Mermaid
The Postman
Clash of Clans: Winter Townhall
Les Poules Solidaires
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.
Q
Tyrant
Matches
The Division: Trailer
CrossClimate
The Crew: Trailer
Stop the Abuse
Beyond Good & Evil 2 E3 Trailer
Greatest Show
“We can’t believe this is Kevin’s 4th year celebrating the holidays with us! Every year these spots seem to get bigger and bigger but certainly we seem to have blown the roof off this one. Regardless of the challenges, these spots are a total blast to make. We get to design, build, and film these incredible sets. Then we get to take the footage home and bring Kevin and his family into it all.
I can’t overstate how much we like this exact pipeline of comping CG animation into cinematography. Being able to work with the real world lighting in CG just makes everything look so dang good. The camera moves were particularly tricky this year around. In fact the camera kept smashing into the food and at one point there was potatoes and gravy dripping off the lens. The AC was none too happy. Another tricky bit on this one was the way the main display of food came down into the set. We basically had 200 lbs of a double decker six foot wide platter of food descend into the shot on ropes. Again, the gravy really didn’t want to cooperate. I just can’t stop imagining what Kevin’s going to get up to next year!”
Todd Mueller, Director
“Kevin the Carrot” Franchise
Now 3 holiday seasons in the running, Todd & Kylie helped turn Christmas’s arguably most unremarkable vegetable – the carrot – into a beloved ambassador for Aldi Supermarkets across the UK. First introduced in 2017, audiences watched as the plucky little carrot met Santa and over the years, found true love, had a family and, most recently, defied an evil parsinip.
Made into an adorable plushy, Kevin rose to rock star status last holiday season, inciting Black Friday levels of chaos as holiday shoppers fought to get their hands on one. How’s that for naughty and nice?
“We fell in love with this project from the very moment we saw it. Come on, a carrot who wants to meet Santa… What’s not to like? We knew that this was a spot for a grocery store so we weren’t going to be able just to stay focused on the carrot. We had to show the big Christmas spread and have as much appetizing food photography as possible. Ideally you want every shot to do one thing perfectly, we didn’t have that luxury. In nearly every shot we need to tell the story and showcase the food. That being said we couldn’t be more thrilled with the way it came out. Our goal with everything we direct is get the viewers to feel something. Not exactly an easy thing to do inside sixty seconds. In any case, hopefully people will come away feeling some Christmas spirit.”
– Directors Kylie Matulick & Todd Mueller
PRESS
Ad Age: A Carrot Goes On An Epic Journey Across The Dinner Table In Aldi’s U.K. Festive Spot
Ad Age: Kevin The Carrot Falls In Love In Aldi’s Christmas Sqeuel
Ad Age: Aldi Reveals Kevin The Carrot’s Eventual Fate In Final Installment Of Holiday Campaign
Campaign: Aldi Makes A Carrot The StarOf Its Christmas Spot
Campaign: Aldi’s Christmas Cliffhanger Sees Kevin The Carrot Return… And Fall In Love
PR Week: Aldi Wins Christmas On Instagram
Mirror: Aldi Christmas Advert Revealed As Kevin The Carrot Goes On A Festive Adventure
Daily Mail: Aldi’s Kevin the Carrot Ss Named This Year’s Most Popular Television Advert With Viewers
The Sun: Aldi’s Kevin The Carrot Christmas Toys ‘Sell Aut’ Within Hours – And End Up On eBay For £1,000
Heist
Emmy Nominated
Happiness Factory
Emmy Nominated
Tipsy
We created this piece as the official trailer for the 2011 Sonoma International Film Festival. Meet Tipsy, a puppeteered wine bottle character enhanced with photo real animation that sings about the film festival in Sonoma. He loves film. He loves good food. And he loves to drink – a little too much.
Staircase
Something’s Lurking
Magic of Coco
“This project is very close my heart. Not only have we done some very emotional workwith Airbnb before – they are a great client, and we have a lot of good friends there – but I have always been inspired by, and a big fan of, Pixar ever since Geri’s Game. It’s not just the storytelling, it’s the lighting, the animation, camera work…everything is beautiful. So, no pressure matching all those qualities…
We designed each shot to transition in and out of Coco, either by matching actions or emotions so that it feels like a seamless back and forth between live-action and the animated film. Not unlike the Samsung S8 and Honda projects last year, I was also really interested in shooting real people – not actors – in a non-scripted manner.”
-Marco Spier, Director
“Airbnb was very much on board with making sure the two families we cast were real families. During the casting I fell in love with the two twin boys, and while talking to them they told me that they weren’t just twins, but triplets. They told me they had a sister with Down Syndrome, and that she was always sad when the two boys were on set, and she could only watch…That idea killed me so together with Airbnb and Disney we made sure this time she would be on camera just like her brothers. She was very proud to do so, and she gave us the best performance of the film… I hope it helped her realize that she can do whatever she wants even with a bit of a disadvantage handed to her by nature.
A lot of unforeseen events happened during this project. While in our pre-pro meeting in Mexico City, the major earthquake struck and our priorities immediately shifted. Together with Airbnb, and The Lift (our local production company), we all decided to donate the equipment, supplies and crew resources for the shoot to people in need instead, and we cancelled the shoot altogether.
At the same time, we all felt that now, more than ever, we needed to help Mexico City, and we ended up being able to reschedule our project as soon as feasible.
The project was a long and humbling experience. I’m happy everything worked out in the end, and I am truly thankful for everybody at Airbnb that really pushed this forward and stood up for our ideas.
I hope people like watching it!”
-Marco
The Ultimate Get Well Card
Enchanted Forest
“It’s been five years since Psyop made their mark on the industry with Happiness Factory — the high flying, CG fable that defined a commercial genre they helped to create. If it’s not broke, then don’t fix it, and once more, the studio plays with the textbook devices that make Psyop distinctively Psyop. In their latest work, magical imagery and a wizardry of craft assure that Enchanted Forest stands shoulder to shoulder aside a long line of Psyop classics.”
- Motionographer
“FedEx touts its low emission vehicles and sustainability efforts with a nicely produced spot out of BBDO NY and Smuggler/Psyop. Set in an enchanted forest with a deep-voiced narrator, the spot tells the story of how a shipping giant befriended a forest. Forest backplates were created with live-action with lighting drawn from that, and then integrated with animation.”
- Creativity Magazine
Garden Party
Wire Cutters
Clash of Clans: Magnificent 25
The Unknown
Theatre Montage Campaign
As a result of our collaboration with branding agency Bailey Lauerman, AMC Theatres introduced a whole new pre-show, on-screen experience that has been entertaining patrons as much as the movies themselves.
These 16 original pre-movie vignettes — everything from theater cell phone policies to emergency exit location information — playfully convey necessary information while creating a fan base all their own. Partnering with AMC to modernize their graphics, Psyop brought the brand to life in a zippy new world that creates excitement for the audience while still conveying important theatre policy and safety information.
To do this, we designed, scripted, and produced more than two dozen story vignettes in multiple genres, including stereoscopic versions, to keep AMC moviegoers aware, informed, and engaged.
