The creative called on a style from our deepest childhood, the classic Rankin Bass Christmas films. That meant an in-camera, stop-motion movement with a heavy dose of nostalgia but still within a contemporary world. 

Much of the aesthetic comes from the limitations of the medium back then, so today we need to intentionally set limitations – decisions such as building marionette-style mouths or dropping frames in the motion – to create space for the happy mistakes that make this style magical and authentically less modern.

Be it the fur on the donkey or the paper textures on the Jack-in-the-box family – they all have unique qualities that need to feel just right.

We’ve invested in our hardware rendering capacity so we knew our pipeline could achieve the photo-real miniature look across the campaign and in the timeframe.

The final hurdle was breathing life into the details such as faces and eyes within the limited style. In keeping with the “steppy” stop-motion style, we wanted it to look mechanical and realistic but still be charming as heck, with an expressive acting range that would hit all the beats.

The whole team was on point, our process went like clockwork and OKRP was with us every step of the way. Even with a fast timeline we were able to add the little details, flourishes and extra side characters to make the world feel full, magical and alive.