Georgia Commute Options - PSA

Nobody likes traffic. Creeping along the highway at a snail’s pace might be great for catching up on the latest podcasts, but it’s pretty terrible for anyone’s sanity. Nobody wants to get where they’re going slowly. We want to get there fast.

For this short animated spot, we wanted to pack in as much character and personality as possible. Ironically, that meant starting slow.

Planning Our Route

It’s always tempting to hit the ground running on a project, however, this spot featured several different environments, a cast of characters, and mini-scenes that could only take up a few seconds each. In order to accomplish this, we needed careful planning, carefully planning techniques that would best serve the story.

Our talented creatives worked closely to develop visuals that were character-focused while using color and light to express tone. The first step was reviewing the script and finding where to add character without slowing the pace of production.

Merging Dimensions

A lot of work went into merging 2D characters and 3D environments in order to create a cohesive spot. This included specific cameras and lenses within the 3D to make it feel more 2D in nature. We even rendered separate shadow palettes for every scene.

On the 2D side, we limited line art on the silhouettes of the characters. This helped us integrate them into the environments without them looking too flat.

Finally, maintaining a sense of travel can sometimes be hard when showing characters in the tight confines of a car or bus interior. Our artists achieved this feeling of continued movement by applying a series of contrasting light and dark shadows across the 2D characters and the 3D interior surfaces. By integrating the shadows through deliberately repetitive motion, we could make it look like the foreground characters are matching the movement of the passing scenery outside the windows.