By Dan Forgione
In previous months, we’ve featured a pair of Guilherme Marcondes’ gorgeous animated spots for British Gas, which were produced by Hornet Inc and overseen by the agency CHI&Partners. We recently had the chance to run a few questions by him, but before that, here’s the latest spot – SharkGirl:
DAN FORGIONE: You began your career in animation in 2000 at the Brazilian animation studio Lobo, and continued to work there for 5 years. Did you always want to work in animation?
GUILHERME MARCONDES: I didn’t know that I wanted to work with animation until I started doing it. I’ve always liked animation, of course, but it didn’t seem like something I could do. I was afraid to get stuck in a very specialized, non-creative, repetitive job. Around 1999, when I started, the majority of Brazilian animation studios were doing Disney or Warner Bros. style cartoons for national commercials and that didn’t interest me. I wanted to do editorial illustration, maybe create my own illustrated books. I figured that I would have more ownership of my work that way.
DAN: What did you start out doing at Lobo?
GUILHERME: I was supposed to start as an illustrator, doing some character designs, backgrounds, whatever they needed. When I showed them my portfolio they found a specific character design they liked and instead of a regular internship they let me make a short film based on that character. It took me 3 months to finish my first animation, called Waiting Tables. It was a short film about a waiter trapped in an endless loop of serving his costumers over and over. A Groundhog Day kind of thing.
DAN: How did your relationship with Hornet come to be, and was the relationship the reason you moved to NY from LA?
GUILHERME: Nothing unusual – a few emails, phone calls and then meetings. It took a couple of years until we finally began to work together. Hornet had voiced their interest a few times and I found the place interesting, but we had to wait for the right time and the right situation. My move to NY had to do with Hornet for sure, but I always wanted to live here. Living in LA was the odd choice for me. I moved there without ever setting foot in the place.
DAN: Working in several different markets (Brazil, London, LA and finally NY), are there any differences in your approach to directing a spot in each of the markets?
GUILHERME: I don’t think so. You have your own work and you try to make the commercial films as close as possible to your original idea. What happens is each market will respond to it in a different way. It’s hard to generalize but in the UK I normally get a good response to my commercial work. Somehow what I do is considered more acceptable. In the US I find it harder to sell my personal style. 
Sometimes I think it’s because the advertising industry here seems to require less personality and more skills but maybe it’s just a matter of taste. I tend to do “weird, quirky, black humor” as my work has been often described. This is a good thing in the UK but not so much in the US, apparently. I had the same problem in Brazil: it’s too “weird” so I have to adapt more. Anyway, I’m talking strictly about the advertising industry’s perception of my work. My short films have found a great reception in the US.
DAN: Was the concept behind the British Gas spots yours, or was it presented it to you by the agency/client?
GUILHERME: The agency came with the concept of the little planets. They even sent me a pretty elaborate “approved” animatic and, to be honest, that restriction turned me off a bit in the beginning. 
On the other hand, the whole idea felt SO much like my work. Most of the time while I was pitching for this job I was thinking “there’s no way I’ll not get it, this has to be mine…” (a certain recipe for frustration). I developed a test with this cut-out AE animation style I used so many times before and we built a test scale model of a planet to show them how essential the real fabricated props would be to sell the “homely” feel of the spot. The funny thing is, after I finished the first spot, the agency informally confided to us they had been inspired, in part, by a spot I directed for BBC2, using the same animation techniques.
DAN: What is the general idea behind the design concept, and what have been some of the most difficult challenges in executing it so far?
GUILHERME: The idea behind the design was to create a universe that feels homely and vast at the same time. BG, as an energy company, has to deal with huge infrastructure projects, in the macro scale. In the micro scale they are responsible for the satisfaction of every costumer. That’s why we don’t have a “BG Family.” Every spot is a different group of characters. In other words: it doesn’t matter who you are or where you lie in our huge universe, we will be there for you.
One of the most challenging tasks was to integrate 3D, live footage and 2D animation all in one single ’steady cam’ shot for one of the latest spots titled Switching.
DAN: Briefly describe the production pipeline for the spots from script to post.
GUILHERME: 
First, I receive a script from the agency. They are normally very good but I’ll still rework the script and create a storyboard/animatic to improve the narrative, camera planning, etc. We cast the actors for each characters and shoot a bunch of pictures of their heads from several angles and multiple facial expressions. Depending on the script, we will decide what’s 3D and what’s a real fabricated miniature. When we have real props, we shoot them against a green screen, both live footage (when we have camera moves) and stills (for locked cameras and extra coverage). The 3D follows the look of the real miniatures and it’s normally developed alongside them. Once the actors are shot, we design the characters and animate them in AE, like cutouts. These 2D animations are later integrated with the 3D camera (when there’s one) or simply over the photographs of the miniatures (also in AE). 
To keep it looking more handmade we animate some elements in stop motion, as opposed to CG. That’s the case of the water-planet in the first spot.
DAN: Finally, what are some of your goals as a director, and is there anything you hope to work on in the future?
GUILHERME: I’m starting to work on a new short film. I don’t know when I’ll be able to do it since BG keeps me so busy! Meanwhile I’m doing some live visuals for a special Decemberists concert in LA later this year. It’s going to be fun.
Next, we turn to Mike Luzzi, one of the animators on the project:
DAN: Mike, could you explain the process of animating the dog from the Rover spot?
British Gas – Rover
MIKE LUZZI: For animating the dog, I didn’t have too many solid parts, like the human characters. He is mostly masks and large patches of fur. I had a few different kind of legs that I switched between. For the body, I animated him in a lot of stages. First just the shape of the body, then the fur overlap, then added in the textures. Once I had a run cycle I shifted parts around to try to mimic perspective needed for the shot where he is running around the planet.
MIKE LUZZI: These British Gas spots are fun because each one has a different set of challenges. For the Rover spot we had to have characters tracking to moving cameras a lot – so that was fun to tackle.
MIKE LUZZI: This is not the first time I have implemented this technique of using masks and textures to mimic perspective. I used it on a pilot for Nickelodeon a few years back for making characters’ heads that could move in a 3 dimensional manner.
