Masterclass with Guilherme Marcondes (2)

Guilherme directed several commercials and it was interesting to hear how sometimes one of his works influences another. He told us he directed a promo for BBC2 in which it was required that the character's head was a photography:

The way this was done is fantastic!!! The little world that we see inside the mailbox was, in fact, created inside a glass box which had little plants, lights and that strange machine inside. Because of the way the box was assembled, the scenery inside the box is reflected by its walls (which work as mirrors), so that the setting doesn't have the clear boundaries of the box. Awesome!  :-)

Because the character's head was a photo, he was contacted by British Gas to direct another commercial, which should also use photos for the characters. This time, the body and the face should be animated. He stylized the faces a little so they blended in with the rest of the scenery.

And what a scenery!! The initial concept was "my home is my world", so each house was placed on top of a different world. These planets were all maquettes, created very carefully, with typically British constructions on top of them. This was an important part of the project: the target audience was British, so it had to be clear that it happened nowhere else in the world. British Gas described exactly how they wanted each planet to look like and a maquette was created following the instructions.

Guilherme has created several advertisements for this campaign from British Gas and slowly he started using 3D because it simplifies a few things, especially when dealing with the interior of the houses. But the characters still follow the initial concept, they're 2D :-)

I found the Masterclass so interesting that I wanted to share a bit of it here. Learning with other artists always helps broaden our horizons, after all, the creative process for creating a short like Tyger or an ad like the one from BG isn't an obvious one. To see what exists, how it was done, where some ideas came from, getting to know other artists and techniques, etc - all that not only helps us understand how the process works for other people and the possibilities that exist, but certainly motivates us to find our own style and breaking some barriers.