Stop Motion Animation with Real Dogs

Russian creative ad agency mfive was tasked with creating a commercial for mobile operator Beeline. What they came up with is a wonderful stop motion animation piece using two very real and very adorable dogs, well worth the watch. Better yet, mfive shared behind-the-scenes video and photos to show how they did it.

Here’s what they say about it:

The video is taken by mfive for Russian mobile operator Beeline and talks about how to top up your phone account directly from your phone. But what’s the trick? (Rus. aphorism: Where is the dog buried?) How to top up your phone account directly from your phone? The instruction and the flying dog are in the video.

The whole production process took three months. The first step was to find the right phlegmatic dog that could be a main hero of the commercial. Three main parameters of animals behavior were chosen to identify the needed animal: the ability to lay on back for a long time, pretty looking and smiling skills.

The second stage – the creation of a detailed prototype (animatic) for the future video and full motion animation of the skeleton of the protagonist of 615 frames. At the same time, there were recreated stage decoration with real set of soil, sand, shells, twigs and other material under foot.

And finally there were seven days of shooting dog lying horizontal with the whole crew on blue backgrounds and scenery alternated with attacking captions, bubbles, snow, icicles!

This is the finished product:

Here’s a behind-the-scenes video:

And here’s the backend:

Photos from the shoot: