Goodstein and Pixomondo China unbox a fully 3D printed commercial for Zihua Creative
In this fully 3D printed web commercial for Zihua.com.cn, China’s first online learning platform focused on the creative industries, every single thing you see in the video is something you can learn on the site: character design, CG animation, stop motion animation, illustration, film scoring, sound design and 3D printing. Even the cast used in the film features the actual teachers and team from the platform.
“When we first sat down with Goodstein, our agency team, we set a pretty high bar for our first commercial. We wanted to do something that had never been done before and do it in a way that helped people understand what we do and how we can help them,” said Echo Sun, CEO and Founder of Zihua Creative.”
Goodstein’s Georg Warga, writer and director of the commercial, added, “At a time when the dial is moving from ‘Made in China’ to ‘Created in China’, the country needs more companies like Zihua Creative to inspire people to learn and create in new ways. Everywhere, people are still educated out of creativity. Once you are stuck in your box, the only thing you will create is another box. This is the story of our main character, and what happens to him once he learns something new.’
“Although 3D printing was used for replacement parts in the puppetry of stop motion films like Paranorman before, this is the first time 3D printing was used as a standalone technique for an animation at this length,” says Jan Heinze, Executive Producer of Pixomondo responsible for the CG and stop motion animation.
Ryan Lai from IdeaRP invented a workflow that allowed multiple 3D printers to work simultaneously, “Every single frame of this stop motion animation was 3D printed. It takes around 4 hours to print a single figure at the size of 14 cm with a standard 3D desktop printer. In total, 688 individual frames were printed on 15 desktop 3D printers over the course of 20 days.”
The film is part of a broader integrated branding campaign driven by Goodstein. The actual 3D prints are being given away as collector’s items and the character has a backstory that will be unveiled over the next few months in serialized comics by co-creator and designer of the boxman image, Zejian Shen, Director of Art and Design Content at Zihua Creative.
Shen said, “We really enjoyed working with Goodstein on this project. The project went through multiple stages of creation – from illustration to 3D computer models to 3D printed figurines to stop-motion animation and more. As was our intention, the creative process itself is symbolic of Boxman’s journey to unboxing his head and Zihua’s overall objective as a platform to stimulate creativity.”
Credits – Goodstein Writer/Director: Georg Warga. Goodstein Creative Producer: Maureen Sherrard. Zihua Concept & Character Desig: Zejian Shen. Zihua Producer: Paul Harding. ideaRP 3D Printing: Ryan Lai: DOP Live Action: Aaron Farrugia. Art Director Live Action: Vanessa Lee. Composer/Sound Design: Jordan Thomas Mitchell. Pixomondo Art Director: Aslan Malik. Pixomondo Visual Effects Producer: Sharon Yuan. Pixomondo Consultant/Visual Effects Producer: Tony Willis. Pixomondo DOP Stop Motion: Nelson Quan. Pixomondo Editor: Will Chan. Pixomondo Digital Artists: Jun Jiang, Yun Liu, Jing Li, JiYang Li, Abbie Fan. Pixomondo Animators: Robbie Reid, He Tian, Yuntao Gao. Pixomondo Compositor: Fan Wang. Pixomondo Visual Effects Coordinators: Anna Kang, Bella Jiang. Goodstein: Production Assistant: Lynn Wong. Goodstein Production Intern: Chris Li.