KANSAS CITY, MO — The team at Bazillion Pictures (www.bazillionpictures.com) has created a series of animated shorts celebrating Groundhog Day. In each video, groundhog Phil details his techniques for determining the weather forecast.
“We started celebrating Groundhog Day because the holiday stands out from the rest and it allows our team to grow and expand character development through animation and visual FX abilities,” says Jeff Beith, president of Bazillion Pictures. “We received such a positive response in 2013, when our first spot was released, that we had to make it a tradition!”
For the 2017 story, Phil has finally made it to the hole to make to his prediction. He's ready to be hoisted up to the crowd to give his “oh so accurate” forecast. The Bazillion team finely tuned Phil’s movement, mannerisms and expressions. Bazillion's lead animator continued to experiment with different aspects of Phil's hair: growing it, grooming it, cutting it, putting it on woolly caterpillars. In fact, Phil received a new hair color in this episode.
In addition to the nuances of Phil’s hair, the modelers and texture artists had fun creating the outdoor environments, while the animators received a chance to spread their wings and create more slapstick physical gags.
Michael Ashcraft serves as the voice of Phil. The soundtrack was created by Substream Music.
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