During my stay with Giant Ant (06/2022 - 02/2023), Nike & Wieden+Kennedy Shanghai asked us to bring the childhood of China's top sprinter,
Su Bingtian, to life. We took a cue from classic Asian animation, creating a colorful 2D world with detailed matte paintings and frame-by-frame character animation.
Su Bingtian, to life. We took a cue from classic Asian animation, creating a colorful 2D world with detailed matte paintings and frame-by-frame character animation.
Client: Nike
Agency: W&K Shanghai
Prod Co: Republic Studios
Directed by Giant Ant
Agency: W&K Shanghai
Prod Co: Republic Studios
Directed by Giant Ant
Executive Producer: Teresa Toews
Executive Creative Director: Jay Grandin
Creative Director: Eric Pautz
Head of Character Animation: Sitji Chou
Head of 2D Animation: Conor Whelan
Executive Creative Director: Jay Grandin
Creative Director: Eric Pautz
Head of Character Animation: Sitji Chou
Head of 2D Animation: Conor Whelan
Producer: Cory Philpott
Creative Direction: Sitji Chou
Art Direction: Eric Pautz
Animation Direction: Sitji Chou
Creative Direction: Sitji Chou
Art Direction: Eric Pautz
Animation Direction: Sitji Chou
Illustration: Eric Pautz, Sitji Chou, Esther Cheung, Joan Chung, Tristan Menard, Sanaa-Agathe Coste, Colin Bigelow, Conor Whelan
Cel Animation: Sitji Chou, Esther Cheung, Louis Roba, Joan Chung
Clean Up Animation: Alex Murphy, Bruno Brasil, Aaron King, Margarita Rojas Lopez-Abadia, Fernanda Ribeiro
Compositing Lead: Conor Whelan
Compositing: Alex Murphy, Diego Maclean
Animation (behind the scenes)
Before jumping on this project, some of our senior members needed training in Toon Boom Harmony (2D cel animation program used by Cartoon Saloon, Polyester, Nomada / a major competitor to Adobe Animate). I led the training remotely from Tokyo with a series of experiments using our ACD's paintings. I also made a series of tutorials! Click here to see the Toon Boom trainer's series ⟶
Once the team was fully trained and we'd synergized, we were off to the races! The following are the scenes I was responsible for.
1:
Rough Animation with Toon Boom Harmony
*Unlike Adobe Animate which is vector-only, we're able to smoothly capture the hand-animated feel with its versatile vector & bitmap layers.
*Unlike Adobe Animate which is vector-only, we're able to smoothly capture the hand-animated feel with its versatile vector & bitmap layers.
2:
Clean Animation with Toon Boom Harmony
*The green layers represent highlights and the purple, shadows!
*The green layers represent highlights and the purple, shadows!
BG Design (behind the scenes)
3:
3:
Our seniors set the visual tone and style with many, many examples of Chinese streets that they liked - and it helped that they were both Chinese so we didn't have to check for cultural accuracy! After they created a couple of the initial BG's were for reference, I was tasked with the following layouts:
Lastly, Some Fun Stuff
4:
Toned Story Beats of Eat Drink Man Woman (Ang Lee)
So I'm a bit of a keener, and genuinely love animation & storyboarding as a craft. Although I wasn't assigned these sketches, our senior animators and I had a great time talking about films that we love. One film that was recommended was Eat Drink Man Woman (Ang Lee) so I took a stab at some black & white story beats.
So I'm a bit of a keener, and genuinely love animation & storyboarding as a craft. Although I wasn't assigned these sketches, our senior animators and I had a great time talking about films that we love. One film that was recommended was Eat Drink Man Woman (Ang Lee) so I took a stab at some black & white story beats.
5:
Sketches of Su Bingtian, China's top sprinter
And I drew some sketches of sprinter Su Bingtian to warm up! An animator's wrist needs to stay loose (;
And I drew some sketches of sprinter Su Bingtian to warm up! An animator's wrist needs to stay loose (;
