WASPS NEST
Prostate cancer is the most common malignancy amongst men. To demonstrate the exponential growth of this disease, Ogilvy CommonHealth and Chemistry commissioned us to create a print and animation depicting a busy colony of wasps building a nest.
PRE PRODUCTION | CONCEPT
We began by researching how wasps build their nests, laying their eggs in hexagonal cells until the larvae grow and eventually pupate into an adult worker wasp. By studying the life cycle of a wasp and the timings for each development phase, we could accurately calculate the compressed time stretch needed for the animated time-lapse. With the nest, the complexity of the organic element that is at the same time an organized modular structure posed a challenge as all the elements had to be positioned precisely within the irregular layout; although we had a tight deadline, a bit of coding did the trick.
POST PRODUCTION | CGI PRODUCTION
Once we got over the itchy phenomenon from viewing so many wasps and larvae, our artists got to work. Each nest can produce up to 1000 to 1500 new wasps, so our bespoke script allowed us to quickly place large amounts of larvae, eggs, pupae, hatched cocoons and newborn wasps in individual cells. Each wasp was rigged with a different pose and was shaded using an automatic variation of textures that allowed a unique pattern per wasp.
For the time-lapse animation, we included 6 different development cycles with which to populate the growing nest, providing a substantial amount of movement as there would be in reality. Alongside this, we created a 7-second loop where our artist individually animated each wasp by hand to ensure a seamless loop without a single wasp out of step.
In addition to these, we produced another animation where we took a more cinematographic approach, adding drama by using multiple shot angles, changing of lights and speeds in time with the strong rhythmic music.
FINAL
