Leading animation and visual effects studio Visual Computing Labs (VCL), a division of Tata Elxsi has recently delivered innovative special effects for Videocon’s latest television commercial for its new range of washing machines.

This ad is unique in that it likens clothes as susceptible to germs to the way people fall sick due to viruses. The ad was conceived to communicate the fact that the new Videocon washing machine has Quanta Wash with the edge of UV ray technology that kills such micro germs. This idea is conveyed using various 3D animation characters.

The challenge was designing four different characters, with each character representing a person wearing the garment and his / her personal traits and attitudes towards life. These attitudes / mannerisms had to be further infused with vigour and made to ‘come alive’ through the performances of the four characters in the animation.

This TVC has been directed by ace ad film maker Mintoo Singh of Classics Films. At the outset, while the TVC looks uncomplicated to a non-discerning viewer, tremendous effort has gone into making this a visually foolproof commercial and ensuring that the animation aptly fitted into its proper environment and not ending up looking flat and stuck on. To fit the animation seamlessly onto the live action person’s T-shirt and actually model the T-shirt / shirt complete with folds that matched the ones in the live footage was extremely challenging to say the least.

Speaking about the creation of the commercial, Suhael Merchant, Animation Director, Visual Computing Labs, said, “The use of animation in advertising is fast becoming a potent force for companies to reach out to the target audience. The uniqueness of this ad film was that even though animation was used as the medium to communicate, the characters for the film were absolutely regular animation characters. The integration of the animated characters being used as prints on various people’s t-shirts and the seriousness of the film’s message is what makes this ad stand out.”

Since its inception, VCL has pioneered some of the finest animated and VFX work that has originated from India and garnered significant worldwide recognition. VCL has successfully delivered fully animated TVCs on a habitual basis for both Indian as well as global customers, the latest being the Kelloggs Honey Loops TVC.

The Himani TVC for the production house, Equinox also created by VCL won the FICCI BAF award this year for executing outstanding visual effects in the category of “Best VFX in a commercial”.