Foghound Studios pushed the boundaries of their experience in character animation in their latest corporate video produced for Deloitte. This video sees senior Deloitte executives being interviewed “live” in studio by a red–eyed tree frog called Armstrong who explores the progress being made with the introduction of the S.A.P. system at Deloitte.
The concept conceived by Ilse Blank, Associate: Internal Communications at Deloitte, of a frog representing the giant leap forward that the introduction of S.A.P. will mean for Deloitte, was brought to life by Peter Furstenberg of Shine Interactive.
With a tight deadline of less then a month and five minutes of animation involved, Furstenberg devoted time and care to the initial rig to ensure it was easy to use, making the animation process seamless and relatively quick.
Deloitte executives also pushed some boundaries, those of their personal acting ability by directing their responses to an empty chair on the day of the shoot. The video was directed by Foghound’s Tim Collins, edited by Jonathen McMillan and audio by Werner Meiring. The Deloitte team included Yvette Estourgie and Kerry Naidoo.
So giant leaps for all involved resulted in a hugely successful corporate communication.
All the interviews were shot in studio with a Jimmy Gib. Tracking markers were inserted at strategic points within the scene. The scenes were analyzed within Maya to extrapolate the markers into a 3D space. These then provided the plates with 3d reference for Armstrong to act in.
Armstrong, completely created and rigged within Maya, has a vast number of articulation points, allowing Shine ultimate control over the rig. This enabled Shine to animate Armstrong in a very short space of time, with a huge repertoire of emotion. | 
