CALLEN Taps DROOL to Give OLIPOP 'A Good Start'
Prebiotic soda brand OLIPOP has unveiled a new campaign, “The Feel Good Soda,” created in partnership with creative agency CALLEN.
At the heart of the campaign is a hero film that brings OLIPOP’s feel-good positioning to life through a blend of live-action storytelling and colourful animation. Featuring a playful reimagining of The Chordettes’ classic hit “Lollipop,” updated with the lyric “Olipop, Olipop,” the spot introduces a cast of animated prebiotic characters that represent the positive impact of better-for-you soda.
CALLEN enlisted the visionary director Freddie Powell (DROOL) who worked with lead animators Luca and Sinem (Not to Scale).
Bringing the campaign to life required an unusually collaborative production process. With an accelerated timeline, live-action production, character development, animation and compositing all had to happen simultaneously rather than sequentially.
“We were developing characters and deciding on 2D designs while we were actually shooting the thing,” said director Freddie Powell. “Normally it’s a relay race where one stage hands off to the next. On this job everything had to leave the starting blocks at once.”
Powell worked alongside animation studio Not To Scale, led by Luca and Sinem, with final compositing handled by Untold Studios.
“I was really keen to push the envelope and make Untold’s life as hard as possible,” Powell joked. “I wanted the camera moving constantly and I was obsessed with the cartoons dipping in and out of direct sunlight. Thankfully everyone involved was up for the challenge.”
Despite the technical complexity, Powell says the project reinforced what he loves most about animation. “It requires an unfathomable amount of trust and communication. You hand over your precious idea to artists and creators and they come back with something that makes your heart soar.”
Animators Luca & Sinem, NOT TO SCALE ; "The most challenging aspect of the project was managing the large number of characters appearing simultaneously in each scene. The goal was to create a vintage non serialised style, and having a choreographed action without making the animation feel repetitive. This required coordinating multiple animators working in parallel, often with limited time for feedback. In the live-action sequences, we also had to carefully balance the performances of the animated characters so they would complement the performance of the human actors.”
CREDITS
Client: OLIPOP
Agency: CALLEN
CCO: Craig Allen
CDs: Matt Vitou, April Lauderdale
Producer: Andrew Daulton
Production: DROOL
Director: Freddie Powell
EP/Co-Founder: Genevieve Sheppard
Producer: Jess Wylie
Director of Photography: Thomas Townend
Production Designer: Laurence Bishop
Casting: Monique du Plessis Murray
Director’s Assistant: Tiffany Whitney Chang
Editor: Thomas Grove Carter
Animation: Not to Scale
Animation Director: Luca&Sinem
Founder/Executive Producer: Dan O’Rourke
Executive Producer: Maud Beckers
Producer: Sarah Butterworth
Production Manager: Abbie James, Marie Jordan
Storyboard Artist: Luca&Sinem, Sav @splitwigs
Character Design: Joe Taylor, Ariel Lopez
Background Concept Artist: Luca Shenato, Tonet Dura, Tristan Menard, Andrew Minella
Background Matte Paint Artists: Luca Schenato, Tonet Dura
2D Animators: Josep Bernau Valls, Maki Yoshikura, Robert Milne, Leo Campasso, Chris Cray, Nick Brooks, Geoffrey McDowall
Cleanup Lead: Margarita Rojas
Cleanup Artist: Raquel Cruz Hevia, Marie Dupont, Andrew Velas, Desiree D Scheper, Juli, Sol Arguindegui, Federico Cavero, Ben McCormick, Agata Kaczan, Gerald Gallego, Andrew Velas
2D AE Comp: Melanie Krein, Corinne Ladeinde, Shiv Pandya
VFX: Untold Studios
Head of Production: Tom Igglesden
EP: Chris Kiser
Production Coordinator: Natalie London
CD/Shoot Supervisor: Paul O’Shea
VFX Supervisor: George Rockliffe
VFX Artist: Alkame İhsan Cihan, Christian Baker, Eleonor Lindvall, Ellie Risdon, Francesca McCall, Hanuma Kondepi, Jakkam Santosh, Lorenzo Solari, Naresh Kumar Nandaluru, Paila Netaji, Pawan Ghodke, Pim Meijer, Rachel Bosc-Bierne, Rajkumar R, Satya Sagar Kolli, Sriram Namana, Sushant Vilas Lavhande, Ugur Levent Kavcioglu, V Siva Sarweswar, Veera Bhaskar Kondapalli, Wasim Ali
Online: James Pratt
SA Production: Robot
EP: Liam Johnson
Line Producer: Chloé Eaton
Production Manager: James Savage
Production Coordinator: Kim Beddow
Edit: Trim
Editor: Thomas Grove Carter
Producer: Claudia Celeste
Color: TMLS
Colorist: Julien Alary
Producer: Eli Sandal
