Bent teamed up with agency Saatchi & Saatchi and used its repertoire of specialties: stop motion, CG and live action to create Buckley’s “Duckley’s”. Bent Image Lab’s latest ad for Complete Liquid Gels showcases Buckley’s ability to knock out the worst cold and flu symptoms via the shooting gallery analogy.

Saatchi & Saatchi’s Associate Creative Director Tyler Serr and Copywriter Michael Tung developed the “Duckley’s” concepts for Buckley’s. “We wanted to make people aware that one small pill will take care of all of your cold and flu symptoms,” says Saatchi’s Head of Production Rob Tunnicliff.

The spot features a sickly woman swallowing a Buckley’s gelcap. As the capsule drops down her throat we zoom into the “interior” of her stomach where wooden ducks seemingly float on several stacked waves in a shooting gallery. Each duck has the name of some form of illness inscribed on it, such as “headache” or “mucas”. The Buckley’s gelcap lands in the shooting gun and takes out each of the ducks in the gallery and the symptoms they represent in one shot. The spot shows how a shooting gallery of ducks floating atop wooden waves can work symbolically for relaying the effectiveness of Buckley’s complete liquid gels as the commercial starts with a symptomatic woman, uses an analogy for the gel cap relief and she ends up feeling better, dressed and ready for her day.

“We wanted to show that this product works. We wanted to really convey a sick feeling and a well feeling with a metaphor in between,” says Bent Director Sol Burbridge. “I like the simplicity of the story. It’s very relatable but at the same time very whimsical.”

The opening shot (featuring the woman) is live action followed by the animated world of stop motion ducks, guns and waves. The plates of the shooting gallery itself are a combination of 7 to 8 motion control passes melded together in post using After Effects. Compositor Evan Thomas Phillips used animation and time remapping to follow the practical camera move into the shooting gallery shot. The gun was filmed in three different positions (since there was only one stop motion gun) and combined with other elements such as the ceiling pass, the ducks and waves to create the final effect.

Bent produced both French and English versions of the “symptoms” flanking the ducks, since the spot will air throughout French and English speaking Canada. Imagineer Systems Mocha software tracked the movement of the ducks. This information allowed Phillips to fix the correct word to each individual duck in After Effects. The Buckley’s gelcap that drops into the gun is CG, created in 3D Studio Max and rendered in V-Ray. The smoke cloud residue that explodes out of the gun was created in Fume FX.

“The agency was so much fun! I feel like we really connected with them,” says Burbridge.

“Having worked with Bent previously, I knew that I would get excellent production value and be working with the industry leaders in their craft,” says Tunnicliff. “When we decided to use a combination of stop motion and CG animation I could think of no better company to partner with.”

Buckley’s “Duckley’s” began airing on Oct.17th through Canada nationwide.