Tom & Mark: “Muffin Man”
Tom and Mark (Nexus Productions) have outdone themselves with “Muffin Man,” a new spot for the recently rebranded Royal Bank of Canada. Although the spot is entirely CG, it captures the retro charm of claymation through its textures, colors and reduced frame rate.
This is one of those spots that’s pure fun to watch again and again. (It works well backwards, too.) I’m especially fond of the way it ends: increasingly baroque scenes of progress and complexity give way to the simplicity of Mr. Muffin himself, happily finishing up a business call while munching on the pastry that started it all. Brilliant.
Title: Muffin Man
Length: 1×60″
Director: Tom & Mark Perrett
CLIENT
Client: Royal Bank of Canada
AGENCY
Agency: BBDO Toronto
Agency Producer: Beatrice Bodogh, Tracey Azzopardy
V.P Group Creative Director: Ian MacKellar
Creative Director: Carlos Moreno
Creative Director: Peter Ignazi
PRODUCTION and ANIMATION
Production Company: Nexus Productions
Directors: Tom and Mark Perrett
Producer: Melody Sylvester
Production Manager: Nathalie Le Berre
Animation and Post-Production: Nexus Productions
MUSIC AND SOUND DESIGN
Music: Brains & Hunch
Sound Design: Brains & Hunch
Wednesday, July 30th 2008 at 5:13 pm |
Beautiful. Flawlessly executed.
Wednesday, July 30th 2008 at 5:41 pm |
This is great. Love the simplicity of the character design too.
Wednesday, July 30th 2008 at 6:22 pm |
What a fantastic piece. the CG claymation look gets a +10 for nostalgia points. Makes me feel like a kid.
Wednesday, July 30th 2008 at 6:32 pm |
Amazing! The textures, the colours, the sights and sounds. Wowwaweewa. It’s like the 70’s and everybody is pressuring my dad to do acid again.
Wednesday, July 30th 2008 at 6:38 pm |
Very nice work. Reminiscent of old Aardman stuff. Alot of nice details that warrant multiple views.
Wednesday, July 30th 2008 at 7:04 pm |
smart.
Wednesday, July 30th 2008 at 8:27 pm |
Tom & Mark’s best work to date I reckon…
Thursday, July 31st 2008 at 1:25 pm |
Agreed!
Wednesday, July 30th 2008 at 8:36 pm |
Incredibly good. Watched it several times, and will continue to do so. Flawless.
Wednesday, July 30th 2008 at 10:45 pm |
BOING!
awesome
Thursday, July 31st 2008 at 1:55 am |
Excellent work! Feels so magical..
So they turned the lovely park into a mall… interesting..
Thursday, July 31st 2008 at 3:54 am |
a bank ad that leaves you smiling! lordy
Thursday, July 31st 2008 at 6:28 am |
Warm & tingly. Love it.
Thursday, July 31st 2008 at 6:52 am |
very impressive!
Thursday, July 31st 2008 at 7:10 am |
beautiful animation, but what about the content? dark underlying issues here: borrow lots of money, build and expand over green space, increase obesity in kids and turn into a fat rich businessman yourself. and keep building and expanding. maybe in the last frame that whispering money lender should choke on his muffin…
Thursday, July 31st 2008 at 12:09 pm |
Seriously! The banker whispering in his ear is like slugworth from willy wonka. The animation is great but man he seemed like such a nice muffin man at the beginning and became a sleazy cell phone totting business man at the end. I hope all the muffin mans watching don’t sell out like this poor little one did. I mean a franchise in a mall? This is like a prequel to Wall-E
Thursday, July 31st 2008 at 12:36 pm |
You guys are right…. the whisper is dark indeed.
Thursday, July 31st 2008 at 1:26 pm |
Haha! Nice conspiracy theory muffinz!
Friday, August 1st 2008 at 12:23 am |
Ummm… it’s a commercial for a BANK. They lend money to help your business prosper. The spot is… well, spot on.
Thursday, July 31st 2008 at 7:29 am |
awesome!
Thursday, July 31st 2008 at 9:35 am |
Same team who did the Coke Unity Olympics spot apparently… you can’t accuse them of being a one trick pony.
Thursday, July 31st 2008 at 1:28 pm |
Wicked! I love the sort of “Eames Powers of 10″ approach to it, very effective! 5 stars fo sho!
Thursday, July 31st 2008 at 1:36 pm |
What codec is this in? Suddenly lots of videos aren’t playing for me, and come up with a question mark over the Quicktime Q.
Thursday, July 31st 2008 at 5:16 pm |
It’s in Sorenson 3 with AAC audio. Should be playable with QT 7.
Have you recently installed any other codecs?
Thursday, July 31st 2008 at 2:49 pm |
Brilliant!
Friday, August 1st 2008 at 5:27 am |
Just Awesome!