BBC One: The Supporting Act – One Christmas 2017

BBC One unveiled it’s Christmas 2017 short film “The Supporting Act”. The Supporting Act builds on the idea of ‘oneness’ that the channel has been focussing on throughout 2017. Since the start of the year, BBC One has showcased idents created by photographer Martin Parr highlighting the interests and passions that bring people together. The film has been created for BBC One by BBC Creative, the BBC’s in-house creative agency, working with award-winning director Elliot Dear at Blinkink. Creatives were Arvid Harnqvist and Amar Marwaha working in to Executive Creative Directors Aidan McClure and Laurent Simon. It was produced by Ken Rodrigues.

The two-minute film follows a 10-year-old girl who practices day in and day out to give the most important dance performance of her life.

Her dad is always with her but he’s busy and getting even busier as Christmas approaches. He remains distracted up until the moment that really matters when father and daughter come together in a wonderful moment of ‘oneness’.

Working on the production with BBC Creative and Blinkink were puppet makers MacKinnon & Saunders (Wes Anderson’s Fantastic Mr Fox and Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride and Frankenweenie), set builders Clockwork Frog (The Pirates: An Adventure with Scientists – Aardman/Sony), Lead Animator Dan Gill (Wes Anderson’s Isle of Dogs and Charlie Kaufman’s Anomalisa), Director of Photography Toby Howell (Fantastic Mr. Fox) and the lead CGI artist was Rune Spaans (Trollhunters).

The characters were animated using the traditional British stop-motion technique but the facial expressions were created and mapped on the puppets using CGI. This approach gave the film the human touch and imperfections of stop motion but the emotional richness of CGI.

The soundtrack for the campaign has been provided by Clean Bandit featuring Zara Larsson with Symphony, and it was specially re-arranged by the award-winning producer Steve Mac.

Charlotte Moore, BBC Director of Content says: “Christmas is a time when people come together to enjoy shared experiences, and special moments. We wanted to reflect that in our Christmas campaign this year and we hope this film will touch hearts and make you smile over the festive period.”

Kerry Moss, Portfolio Head of Marketing, BBC One says: “BBC One brings millions of people together each week around shared moments of entertainment. Building on the message at the heart of the channel’s ‘oneness’ idents, the Christmas film illustrates the joy that can be sparked through a shared moment. Through its depiction of a busy dad and dance-loving daughter, the film draws on the insight that the pressures of life can often get in the way of the things that really matter, particularly at Christmas.”

Justin Bairamian, Director, BBC Creative says: “We’re delighted to have formed a world-class team from across the industry to create this film. It’s BBC Creative’s first BBC One Christmas campaign, so we very much hope it lands well with audiences.”

Elliot Dear from Blinkink says: “The story is about an emotional connection between a girl and her dad. We wanted to make a film that had the charming, handmade qualities of stop-motion animation, the tiny imperfections that let you know it’s been done for real. The aim was to combine this with CG animation – which we used for the faces – in order to capture the tiny nuances of human facial expressions, enabling the characters to be very emotive without the use of dialogue.”

Credits

BBC Creative
Executive Creative Director – Aidan McClure
Executive Creative Director – Laurent Simon
Creative – Amar Marwaha
Creative – Arvid Harnqvist
Agency Producer – Ken Rodrigues
Agency Project Manager – Astrid Reiner
Agency Production Manager – Jenny Broad

BBC One Marketing
Portfolio Head of Marketing – Kerry Moss
Marketing Manager – Harriet Gunning
Marketing Executive – Claire Grainger

Blinkink
Director – Elliot Dear
Executive Producer – Bart Yates
Senior Producer – Benjamin Lole
Production Manager – Alex Holberton