Z ANIMATION COMPLETES 'SOUTHERN' PROJECT
Southern Company, based in Atlanta, is a leading energy producer, and the new "Common Sense" campaign uses line-drawn animation to illustrate how the company is looking toward alternative energy sources to make the United States less dependent of foreign energy providers.
The spots all use the playful "nervous-line" watercolor style. Rather than just create a few rough sketches, Bendell came up with finished art that could be plugged right into the agency's basic three-panel layouts. He also came up with the idea of adding the small dog character to counter to the campaign's "everyman" main character.
Ryan was brought in to adapt Bendell's designs for animation, add background elements, and give both the human and dog characters their own acting styles.
Gabriel Silva produced for Spotmakers, the in-house production arm of The Richards Group in Dallas. For post house Charlie Uniform Tango in Dallas, Jeff Elmore was the executive producer, Dave Laird handled the online conform in Autodesk Smoke, and Russell Smith was the audio engineer.