A 30-second fake commercial for baked beans, made by vfx house Cinesite, which is probably the most finely polished take on the age-old fart gag you’re ever likely to see, has become a viral hit, receiving over half a million views in less than a week.
The short, which takes the familiar footage of the moon landing, throws in a huge scary space monster and the aforementioned fart gag, has been in development for months as a pet project to show Cinesite’s production credentials on its showreel.
"Six or seven people did the bulk of the work and additional artists drifted in and out when they had the time," says Eamonn Butler, animation director. "It’s been seven months in development. We wanted it to be very creative, and develop a real creative culture internally. We’re going to be doing a similar thing ever year from now on."
"It’s all cg, using heavy photographic references of astronauts. The background is the real moon, while the foreground is a cg version of the moon. It has the fixed depth of field you see on moon footage," he adds.
"Beans is a short, cheeky film with an unexpected ending. Written and directed by animator Alvise Avati, it was completed by the London-based team at Cinesite, who were behind the vfx on World War Z, Skyfall, Iron Man 3 and many other major productions. Creating our own animated short has given us a chance to show off Cinesite’s creature skills and the talents of our creative team, who also had a great deal of fun making it," says the company.
The cinematic sound on the spot was created by Molinare, which also graded the fake commercial.
The full Cinesite credit list is as follows:
Written and Directed
Alvise Avati
Producer
Eamonn Butler
VFX Supervisor
Richard Clarke
Art Direction
Jean-David Solon
Concept Art
Andrea de Martis
Modelling and Rigging
Grahame Curtis
Royston Willcocks
Richard Boyle
Animation
Alvise Avati
Eamonn Butler
Peter Clayton
Tom O’Flaherty
Adam Bailey
Texture Artists
Nicolette Newman
Gary Newman
FX Animation
Andreas Vrhovsek
Luke Wilde
Lighting and Compositing
Zave Jackson
Nikos Gatos
Jonathan Vuillemin
Dan Harrod
Joel Bodin
Editorial
William Marshall-Wilkinson
Christopher Learmonth
Staff Reporter
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