What is assumed to be a simple function of a series of levers inside a vending machine opens up into fantastical journey of adventure and celebration in the new theatrical spot for Coca-Cola created by design/animation studio Psyop via Wieden + Kennedy Amsterdam. Last winter, the agency had a rough idea of ‘Happiness Factory’ but opened up the pitch process to a variety of ideas and design schemes.

“The agency came to us with the basic concept of ‘Happiness Factory’,” explains Kylie Matulick, co-founder of Psyop who co-directed the spot along with fellow co-founder Todd Mueller. “We designed some styles based on their treatment, won the job in January and were off to Amsterdam a couple days later to brainstorm with the agency. It was an unusually collaborative process in which we developed the idea very closely with them. Most of the collaboration was in the content, trying to decide how to get from point A to point B. Once we had the structure down we went away and concentrated on the design, the environment, character s, animation and narrative. ”
Psyop spent months drawing, creating scenarios, ditching those and starting again with a new idea.

“We drew and drew and drew, ” recalls Mueller. “For every scenario in the final spot there were more than 10 that didn’t make it. Once we locked into an specific idea we sketched it out, played with character design and then took it from there into pre-vis and then onto character rotations, modeling, rigging, texturing and lighting.”
Adding to their character designs they brought on noted matte painter Dylan Cole, who has done matte paintings for such films as Superman Returns, The Chronicles of Narnia, The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, The Aviator and I, Robot.
“Dylan was fantastic and added a lot to the project with his fantasyscapes,” says Matulick.

Psyop used Autodesk Flame, Maya and Adobe Photoshop and After Effects on the project.
In addition to the creative and technical challenges, Psyop also had to ramp the project up for theatrical display.

“It’s just takes four times the rendering so we had to invest in a more substantial Renderfarm, more storage, more everything,” notes Mueller , adding “But one of the nice things is today the tools allow you to be that flexible and out philosophy as a company is to wait until we absolutely need a tool before you buy it because something better could likely come out the very next day.”

While this was a single spot, expect to see lots more in the same vein of the Happiness Factory as Coke has latched on to this for a larger campaign, creating lifesize models of the character, toys and is exploring how to broaden the spot into a larger campaign.

“The thing about doing a spot for Coke is that it is one of the most respected brands out there with a long history of innovative ad campaigns, so it’s a big challenge for us, and we didn’t wasn’t to hold anything back,” says Mueller. “For us it has been the most film-like project that we’ve ever done – developing an entire world, a whole set of characters, a narrative, so it was a really fun project to be a part of.”

Agency: Wieden + Kennedy, Amsterdam
Creative Directors: Hunter Hindman, Rick Condos
Account Team: Stephen Corlett
Producer: Darryl Hagans & Tom Dunlap
Assistant Producer: Matt Kendall
Executive Creative Directors: Al Moseley, John Norman
Agency Executive Producer: Tom Dunlap

Production/post house: Psyop
Directors: Todd Mueller & Kylie Matulick
Executive Producer: Justin Booth Clibborn
Producer: Boo Wong
Assistant Producers: Kate Phillips, Viet Luu
Flame Artists: Eben Mears (lead), Jaime Aguirre
Lead 3D Artist: Joe Burrascano
Animation director: Kevin Estey
Technical director: Josh Harvey
3D Animators: Kyle Mohr, Miles Southan, Boris Ustaev, Dan Vislocky
3D Artists: Chris Bach, Clay Budin, David Chontos, Tom Cushwa, Josh Frankel, Jonathan Garin, Scott Hubbard, Jaye Kim, Joon Lee, Paul Liaw, Joerg Liebold, David Lobser, Dylan Maxwell, Naomi Nishimura, Ylli Orana
Storyboard Artist: Ben Chan
Matte Painter: Dylan Cole
Editor: Cass Vanini

Music: Human
Executive Producer: Mark Altshuler

Sound Design: Amber Music & Sound Design
Executive Producer: Michelle Curran
Sound Designer: Bill Chesley
Producer: Kate Gibson

Audio Post-Production: Audio Engine, NY