Virgin Media O2 has launched the third chapter of its “To Better and Beyond” campaign. Agency VCCP London created this “Walrus Whizzer” integrated campaign, which highlights the freedom that Virgin Media broadband brings.
Set to the soundtrack of Billy Ocean’s “Suddenly,” this hero film emulates the unstoppable feeling experienced when using Virgin Media broadband. The :60 features a walrus, climbing out of icy waters in a fishing harbor and hopping on to a speedboat. The walrus hits the controls and cruises off into the distance with confused locals and a group of envious walruses looking on. The walrus lets out a roar of happiness as it skims across the waves.
VCCP and its global content creation studio Girl&Bear worked with Swedish artist and director Andreas Nilsson and film production company Biscuit Filmworks to bring the film to life.
VCCP turned to Emmy and BAFTA Award-winning Untold Studios to create the unstoppable speedboat operator, “Walrus Whizzer.” The innovative and complex production process began with CG rendered shots, and a bespoke asset build of the walrus through complex 3D models. These were brought to life through a team of animation supervisors and further development within FX to ensure realistic simulations of character movement. Complex lighting models were created within CG to make all of the shots look utterly realistic and photographic. The work was then handed over to the composition team to embed rendered images into real film plates and craft the final touches, like lighting glints, film grade and lens flares.
The resulting film is a distinctive and unexpected story of a maverick walrus discovering his mojo and working out how to move faster and more smoothly through life.
