MPC worked directly with Psyop throughout the production process, integrating 3D creatures with Psyop’s live-action footage. “We wanted to create something that looked like museum dioramas, but with photoreal animals,” explained MPC LA MD Andrew Bell.
MPC dove deep into their reservoir of creature experience to achieve this level of realism, using photoreal fur dynamics, and muscular and skeletal techniques all developed in-house through MPC Features. Still, even with its experience creating life-like creatures for the likes of Hyundai and Skittles Riddles, the realistic depiction of animals engaging in such unlikely acts proved to be a challenge.
“We walked a line between the impossible and the very real,” said Bell. “We designed these fun portraits of animal magic so that you’d want to believe in them, sticking to the constraints of physics and anatomy. We wanted viewers to be left with a sense that, though these actions couldn’t be true, maybe they were.”