Cadbury Dairy Milk Seduces Viewers in New :60 Spot from Publicis QMP Ireland and Brand New School Director Jonathan Notaro The artists and producers from international production company and design studio Brand New School (BNS) are very proud to detail their latest project. Developed in partnership with Publicis QMP Ireland and Cadbury, the sumptuous :60 broadcast/web spot for Cadbury Dairy Milk entitled “Icons” recently debuted as a key part of the brand’s biggest ever integrated marketing campaign in Ireland.

The challenge to BNS began with what company founder and director Jonathan Notaro described as “a beautifully poetic script” and a detailed agency briefing, which called for an ad that would “seduce” viewers with footage of tempting, mouth-watering chocolate in all its glory and perhaps involve “hints of cheeky humour.”

“We all felt that this project would build on some of our previous work while offering us a new direction with its dark, dramatically slick tone,” Jonathan began. “Using the process as a starting point we began designing abstract scenes that were surreal and terrestrial to create a mysterious visual narrative. We wanted to capture the behavior of these different elements with a little sleight of hand, so we decided to fuse photo-sonic photography for the scenes we could capture in-camera and CG for the scenarios that were impossible to film.”

In the spot, the camera moves through abstracted forms frozen in time atop a lush purple landscape, beginning with milk flowing from two glasses into a tornado of chocolate. Time slows to accentuate the collision of milk and dark chocolate swirling and melding together, with one piece of hard chocolate splintering into shards amidst confetti from Cadbury Dairy Milk’s signature golden foil. The perspective widens to reveal all the elements coming together as an artistic installation floating in space, ending with foil wrapping around flowing chocolate and the perfectly formed product.

For BNS, other key contributors included art director Ricardo Villavicencio, VFX/CG supervisor Vadim Turchin, designers Sakona Kong and Wakoko Ichonose, London executive producer Geraldine McCarthy, producer Georgina Poushkine and post producer Madison Brigode, among many others. Under the direction of Jonathan and director of photography Tim Green, the crew shot its live-action elements using the Photron FASTCAM BC2 HD camera system and special 99K Linear Longstrike Lightning Strike lights. For all the chocolate pouring shots, the team used special rigs built by Artem Visual Effects, together with silicone dyed to match Cadbury’s Dairy Milk chocolate. “We built oversized 3X scale versions of the models we shot to create a larger, more environmental feel,” Jonathan explained. “We also shot everything at extremely high speeds with strobe-like lighting, which allowed us to get very crisp images that felt massive in scale.”

Design development continued throughout the entire production process, as Ricardo continued to perfect the key visuals of each scene based on experimentation in 3D and other areas. While much of that work occurred in Adobe Creative Suite and Autodesk Maya, the recent upgrades to V-Ray’s rendering software helped BNS create more cinematic content in all the CG footage. The HD content was finished using Autodesk Flame.

Not only does the spot provide a stunning centerpiece for the two million euro campaign, a key piece of concept art used to develop the spot was later finished for print channels. Over the months ahead, that imagery will appear in facets spanning advertising, digital, press and outdoor.

“Cadbury is a global iconic brand. It’s one of the big guns,” said Darragh Carey of Publicis QMP. “So we had to convey taste with a genuine sense of confidence and scale. The spectacle had to live up to the brand. In the journey from script to screen, so much could have been lost, but Brand New School created something unexpected and yet undeniably Cadbury. It is arresting, tactile and magical. Jonathan and his team have demonstrated that flowing chocolate can be surprising; that it can be beautiful.”

For Publicis QMP Ireland, the team consisted of creative director Ronan Nulty, copywriter Darragh Carey, art director Avril Durkan, producer Margaret Levingstone, account director Kerry Fitzgerald. Additional BNS credits include executive producer Devin Brook and production manager Michaela Miesen. The spot features the song “Abracadabra” by Steve Miller Band, and its sound design and final mix were completed by Mutiny Sound Studios Dublin. Complete project credits are available upon request.

About Brand New School
With offices in New York, Los Angeles and London, Brand New School is a vertically integrated production company and design studio that delivers extraordinary media on all platforms. Offering a new model for creative digital production, we are filmmakers, developers, designers, animators, editors, illustrators, and producers dedicated to driving communications to new heights. Akin to leading academic institutions, our guiding philosophies prize experimentation and learning, and our commitment to discovering the best ideas for our clients is absolute. For more information, please visit www.brandnewschool.com.

Project Name: Cadbury Dairy Milk “Icons”
Length: :60
Debut Date: Sept. 3, 2011
Film Studio/Location: Duke’s Island Studios, West London
Main Tools: Photron FASTCAM BC2 HD camera system, 99K Linear Longstrike Lightning Strike lights, Adobe Creative Suite and Autodesk Maya, V-Ray.

Client: Cadbury
Marketing Manager: Greta Hammel
Brand Manager: Aideen Murphy

Advertising Agency: Publicis QMP, Ireland
Creative Director: Ronan Nulty
Copywriter: Darragh Carey
Art Director: Avril Durkan
Account Director: Kerry Fitzgerald
Agency Producer: Margaret Levingstone

Production Company: Brand New School London
Executive Creative Director: Jonathan Notaro
Director: Jonathan Notaro
Art Director: Ricardo Villavicencio
Director of Photography: Tim Green
Executive Producer (London): Geraldine McCarthy
Executive Producer (NY): Devin J Brook
Producer (London): Georgina Poushkine
Production Manager (London): Michaela Miesen
Post Producer (NY): Madison Brigode
Storyboards: Will Rosado
Designers: Ricardo Villavicencio, Freddy Arenas, Mario Sader, Wakako Ichinose, Sakona Kong, Andy Bernett,
Caleb Halter
CG/VFX Supervisor: Vadim Turchin
Animator: Meng-Han Ho, Walter Lubinski, Jerry Chow, Michael Garcia, Seon Crawford, Oyekunle Jegede, Jeff Bryson
3D Lighter: Ryan Lang, Eric Concepcion, Bill Dorais
3D Modeler: Alek Vacura, Piotr Glabinski
Flame Artists/Compositors: Aska Otake, Joe Vitale, Elsa Tu, Sheila Sullivan

Practical Visual Effects Company: Artem Visual Effects London

Music Track: Steve Miller Band’s “Abracadabra”

Sound Design and Final Mix Company: Mutiny Sound Studios Dublin