Ron Foth Advertising came up with a wonderful logo for the Baboon Lagoon portion in the Zoombezi Bay water park of the Columbus, Ohio zoo. They needed a traditional animation studio to bring the wacky baboons to life, an octopus who pulls our reporter out of the scene, and their logo with all its characters and water splashing. The result is this ad with animated elements from Buzzco.
This spot was a killer! The agency's client took forever to give approvals for the live action shoot, which left little time for the animation which they hoped would be "Disney-esque". Both the baboon footage and the logo (although very complicated) could be attacked early on, but the octopus arm was another story.
For live action to be seamlessly integrated with animation, everyone knew that the camera should be locked off, there should be a large green screen background, and the boy should be rigged with an off-screen mechanical lift. But because of some technical issues, the live action was shot with a tiny green sheet that blew in the background, the camera kept moving and a human grip lifted the boy. AfterEffects came to our aid. It stabilized the live, helped us with our mats and we masked out the grip's hands. Unfortunately, we couldn’t compete with the Flame at the post-production house for time and there was an airdate. The producer told us that the post house did it in 2 hours (with our model art, but hardly Disney animation).
This is our version of that scene (which needed 2 extra days) and not it was the one that aired.
Advertising Agency: Ron Foth Advertising
Producers: Marty Nowak and Lisa Bauer
Animation Studio: Buzzco Associates, inc.
Director: Candy Kugel
Lead Animator: Rick Broas
Producer: Marilyn Kraemer