The Challenge

The hotel we were shooting at was open while production occurred, meaning we had to work around and wrangle guests. We worked to figure out ways to make Marriott’s ideas come to life, requiring us prep a number of props ahead of time. Also, we had to spend hours on each scene with real people as our stop motion characters. We meticulously moved hands, feet and faces frame by frame all while hoping that fatigue wouldn’t set in.

The Execution

We brought on a few stop motion animators to help us bring the scenes to life. We also used a time lapse motion rig to add movement to the shots. A few items like the animated pie graph required us to custom create and order dozens of nearly identical, laser cut 3D plastic objects. We shot 3 scenes per day, making sure that each frame worked seamlessly in the video.

The Impact

Marriott used the video on their website and inside hotels. We were excited to learn that the video won an Ad Fed Gold award and an Adrian Bronze award.

We shot the last scene backwards and reversed it in post production. It was fun organizing all the props in reverse - including a number of pre-cut wine bottles of different sizes - so that they would pop on fluidly in the final edit.

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