Buster the Boxer and a cast of wildlife animals star in John Lewis’ 2016 Christmas campaign
John Lewis has launched its 2016 Christmas advertising campaign ‘Buster The Boxer’, via adam&eveDDB London.
Set to a cover version of the song ‘One Day I’ll Fly Away’, recorded by the British band Vaults, the two minute advert tells a magical, make-believe story of Buster the Boxer dog and his family at Christmas.
The advert tells the story of a little girl called Bridget who loves to jump. Her Mum and Dad buy her a trampoline for Christmas and hide it in the garden to surprise her with on Christmas Day. However, after dark, in a magical world observed only by Buster, a cast of wildlife animals emerges – two foxes, a badger, a squirrel, and a hedgehog – who discover the trampoline and have fun jumping.
On Christmas morning, Bridget excitedly runs out into the garden to discover her present however Buster bounds past her and starts bouncing on her trampoline – she watches him wide-eyed.
As the story brings to life some of Britain’s most-loved wildlife, John Lewis has chosen The Wildlife Trusts to be this year’s Christmas campaign charity partner.
The spot was directed by Dougal Wilson, who also directed three previous John Lewis Christmas adverts including 2011’s The Long Wait, 2012’s The Journey, and 2014’s ‘Monty’s Christmas’.
Clients: Craig Inglis: Customer Director & Rachel Swift: Head of Marketing, Brand & Social
Agency: adam&eveDDB
Chief Creative Officer: Ben Priest
Executive Creative Directors: Richard Brim, Ben Tollett
Copywriter: Ben Stilitz
Art Director: Colin Booth
Chief Strategy Officer: David Golding
Planning Partner: Martin Beverley
Managing Director: Tammy Einar
Business Director: Miranda Hopewell
Account Director: Caroline Grayson
Account Manager: Alice Child
Producer: Panos Louca
Assistant Producer: Sion Prys
Media Planning
Media Company: MGOMD
CEO: Tim Pearson
Executive Director, Head of Planning: Clare Peters
Head of Retail: David Bratt
Client Account Director: Andrew Darby
Client Account Director, Digital: Ric Roberts
Film
Production Company: Blink Productions
Director: Dougal Wilson
Producer: Nick Goldsmith
DOP: Joost Van Gelder
Production Manager: Hannah Fowles-Uazdro
Production Assistant: Jack Bingham
Post Production Company: MPC
VFX Executive Producer: Julie Evans
VFX Producer: Hannah Ruddleston
VFX Line Producer: Sandra Ekland
Creative Director VFX, MPC: Diarmid Harrison-Murray
Colourist: Jean-Clément Soret
Shoot Supervisor: Tom Harding & Tito Fernandes
VFX Supervisor 3D: Fabian Frank
VFX Supervisor 2D: Tom Harding
Animation Supervisor: Tim van Hussen
3D VFX Team: Chloe Dawes, Anthony Bloor, Ben Thomas, Graham Cristie, Jessie Amadio, Julien Labussiere, Luca Maccarelli, Matthew Gifford, Radu Ciubotariu, Tito Fernandes, Tushar Kewali, Vincent Ullman, Will Laban, Hanna Binswanger, Max Mallmann, Jessica Groom, Ankit Dheraj Toppo, Earnest Victor, Ganesh Kumar S., Bibin Balan P, Gayatri Patel, Jyoti Prakash Panda, Manjunath Ramakrishnaiah, Inigo Vimal Roy, Ria Banerjee, Gayatri Patel, Gerard Dunleavy
Animation Team: David Bryan, Boris Cailly, India Barnardo, Martyn Smith, Lou Thomas, Cynthia Collins
2D VFX Team: Grant White, David Filipe, Andreas Feix, Alex Snookes, Venkatesh Rajagopal, Ginesh Gandhi, Jonathan Box, Amresh Kumar, Padma Priya, Prasanth Palaparthi, Rajesh Kumar, Shalwin Shaiju, Yasasvini. V, R Vignesh, S. Samson Samuel, Shalwin Shaiju
Music Supervision Company: Leland Music
Music Supervisors: Abi Leland & Ed Bailie
Sound Company: Factory
Sound Design & Mix: Anthony Moore
Audio Producer: Becs Bell
Editing: Final Cut
Editor: Rick Russell
VR Experience
Production Company: MPC Creative
Executive Creative Director, MPC Creative: André Assalino
Interactive Creative Director, MPC Creative: Pete Conolly
Executive Producer: Dan Phillips
Lead Producer: Joana Flor
Senior Interactive Producer: Joana Guimarães
Interactive Production Assistant: Sinead Catney
Lead Tech Artists: Pablo Bravo and Cat Dixon
Lead UE Developer: David Pereira
UE Developer team: Dennis Ippel, Guiseppe Mattiolo, Thomas Lopez, Olivier Dumas, Bertrand Leroy
Lead Unity Developer: Tim Porteous
Unity Developer: Vitor Castanheira
Front and Back-end Developer: Pedro Rocha
UI Designer: Gorkem Menekse
Soundtrack name and composer: One Day I’ll Fly Away, Randy Crawford Performed by: Vaults
VFX Supervisors: Kumar Chandrasekaran – VFX HoP; Sean Mullen – VFX Creative Director; David Kern – VFX Technical Director; Selvam Venkatesan, Praveen Madhyasta – Animation; Anil Kumar Singh – Rigging
VFX Artists: Matthew Gifford; Tushar Kewlani; Raju Ganesh; Baskaran Seetharaman ; Pritesh Krishnappa Kotian; Atheesh Sankaran; Ashish Kumar Chourasiya; Shivam Pandey; Krishnendu Bikash Maity; Yogesh Gadge; Ganesh Mohan; Mithun Monga
Shashi Prakash Raj; Vivek Mangainath; Dhanesh Puthiyavalappil; Harwin Sebastien; Srinivasa Sheelam; Aditya Shukla; Sminesh Sudevan
Senior VFX Producer: Tomek Zietkiewicz
VFX Production Supervisor: Devendra Kumar
VFX Producer: Prithi Amarnath
VFX Production Assistant: Lokesh Reddy
Tech Artist: Pravenn Thanvi
DMP: Michelle Tolo
Motion Designer: Jonny Eveson
Sound Design: 1618 Digital
Sound studio: ClearCut
VO Artist: Faye Ripley
6 Comments
As much as I love this….Can’t help think it’s time for something new? Or at least, something extra?
Do you reckon?
I kinda think they’ve got themselves into the enviable position where everyone waits to see what they’ll do this year. Sort of like the Myer window. It’s made a super strong link between the brand and the biggest shopping event of the year.
I love the fact that it’s just a beautifully shot, beautifully told little story every year, and not some satellite that kills sharks and cures AIDS.
Can’t help but feel for all the kids around the world who just learnt it is your Dad who builds your trampoline, not Santa.
The weakest one yet.
More credits than a feature film.
Agree with Raoul.
Sure they found a nice ‘hero’ in the bouncing dog but the story is incredibly flat.
The really bad CG doesn’t help it much either.
With the exception of ‘bear’ I’ve always found John Lewis to be a bit ‘manufactured emotion’ but this one is much more-so than others.