The Big Headed Bilby

We collaborated with Australian retailer, Big W and M&C Saatchi to create “The Big Headed Bilby”, a unique hybrid experience encouraging families to have fun and get creative during the school holidays by using arts and crafts at home and then compositing their creations into a custom animated video.

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First, we developed an interactive Facebook Messenger bot to guide artists through the journey. Artists followed along using simple crafts from home or purchased them online through Big W. Then they snapped a photo of their creations through the messenger bot to see their characters come to life!

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Our bespoke software removed the background from their photo, and using our custom programming algorithm, extracted the keyframe animation from the film, applying that animation to the users’ character. Each craft character was then rendered into the film, interacting with the prebuilt story to create each artist's unique mini movie, complete with personalized credits.

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The Big Headed Bilby campaign was recognized by all major industry publications for innovation and creativity.

Our talented art team led by Julian Burgess (character animation) and Anna Fraser (environment design) hand painted environments and used traditional 2D animation techniques to animate each character to create this visually compelling and completely unique storytelling experience.