“Orkin: Spy Guy” by R/Greenberg Associates
Conference:
- SIGGRAPH 1999 More animation videos from SIGGRAPH 1999:
Title:
- Orkin: Spy Guy
Company / Institution / Agency:
- R/Greenberg Associates
Description:
In this 30-second digital film, an innocent group of kitchen items is about to be violated by a ransacking army of ants. The rosy-cheeked and romantically linked Salt and Pepper shakers quiver in open-mouthed terror while the cute Cow Creamer moos in agony at the arthropod invasion. The Sugar Bowl leaps about hysterically in an attempt to avoid being devoured. The vintage Kitty Kat Klock swings her tail nervously and yowls in protest. And, in a starring role, the Honey Bear (played by the inimitable Dom Deluise) yells a futile cry for help. Such a sweet guy and so helpless…
But wait! All is not lost! The suave and sophisticated Orkin Man swaggers onto the formica counter top from behind the door of his high-tech bread box and stands next to his streamlined vehicle, here to save the day! In a tuxedo!With an acrobatic yet elegant martial-arts-derived tumble, our hero moves swiftly into a strategic location to take advantage of the latest in modern kitchen technology and rid this innocent world of the evil pincher-snapping pests.
This state-of-the-art, character-driven spot and cinematic experience was animated and rendered by the R/GA Character Group using Softimage and Mental Ray as core technologies. Spy Guy is the fourth spot that R/GA has produced and directed for this original campaign, so custom tools and expressions have been developed within Softimage to provide for maximally efficient and artist-friendly animation of the Orkin Man, due to his recurring role and increasingly difficult-to-work-with behavior.
