F&N Ranger "Face Off"
Agency: J. Walter Thompson Malaysia
Director: Adrian Tang
MFX Director: Chan Moon Choong
For F&N Ranger, we had to bring the Spanish bull-run to the streets of Kuala Lumpur. We opted to fully animate the bull as each of the shots required it to perform certain dangerous actions (dangerous for the talents, we mean) that were not possible for a live-shoot.
So, we refered to actual footage of bull movements, thinking it'd be simple to recreate! Man, were we wrong! Studying the mechanics of its movements based on available footage (without the luxury of time or budget to study a real-life bull), we had to build its sequence of actions from many different sources and reference videos. Once we got the bull performing the required actions for each shot as naturally as possible, we moved on to subtler details like eye-lines and ear twitches. But we soon realized we had to keep those to a minimum and refrain from over-characterizing the bull, otherwise it tended to look too cartoonish.
Working within a very tight schedule, we came to find a right balance for producing a natural-looking bull, but with enough menace in its eyes and appearance for the purpose of storytelling.
