Eye Candy Animation

Eye Candy helps to launch new brand for the University of Canberra

15th August, 2007

The University of Canberra just launched a new television commercial to promote its courses to school leavers and its upcoming open day. Faced with an incredibly tight turnaround of just two weeks until the commercial was to go to air, the University looked to Eye Candy for an animation solution that could be produced both at a high quality and within the timeframes.

Pro Vice-Chancellor (Engagement) Professor Deborah Ralston said the ad was all about the consistent message the University was trying to send to students. “That is, come to the University of Canberra and you’ll have a great experience – but also be ready for your career from the day you graduate,” Professor Ralston said.

Creative Director Rachael Johnson executed this concept using a character called ‘Bruce’ who is a new student at the university. He is shown hurdling his way through life at university, experiencing all the challenges of study and social life, but when the pressure comes on at the end, he handles his exams, graduating and landing a well paid job.

Eye Candy worked with director Michael Sergi, a film and television lecturer at the University who actually taught some Eye Candy staff many years ago. Mr Sergi said staff and students at the University who had seen a preview had found the ad “imaginative, real and funny”.

The style of the commercial was to have a slightly stylised cartoon look for the visuals, a strong music track and a strong audio effects track. A clever technical solution was created by our Senior Animators to create a looping environment that would allow the background and the track to be developed quickly once and then keep looping with the addition of assets coming in and out of the scene. This allowed the animation component of the project to be started much earlier and have the design team keep working on the assets well into the animation phase and literally drop them into the scene as they were being finished.

“It has cut-through and better still, it directly conveys to young people how exciting and enriching university life can be,” Mr Sergi said. “We sometimes forget to tell people that.”

All of Eye Candy’s systems and processes were thoroughly tested on this project along with our team, many of who stayed bunkered down in the studio for 10 days and nights to meet the tough deadline the client was faced with.

“The University needed leading, professional filmmakers to produce this ad… The production values and animation quality are extremely high for a relatively low-budget production. I have no doubt it will be among some of the best work on prime time television.” Professor Ralston said.