The Mill completes work on 'hard-hitting' NSPCC campaign

The Mill have collaborated with director Frank Budgen and Passion Pictures on the NSPCC's latest television campaign.
The disturbing 40-second film combines live-action footage shot by Frank Budgen on 16mm, with an animated child created by Passion Pictures and composited by The Mill. Passion Pictures worked closely with Budgen over a period of three months, creating a cartoon character of a young boy.
The film opens with the animated boy sitting watching television in a real living room, when his father walks in and hits him across the head. This leads to a sequence of events involving the father shouting and physically abusing the animated character.
In the end sequence the character is pushed down the stairs, where he bounces until he hits the bottom and a real boy appears, lying on the floor.
The Mill's role involved marrying together the live action with the animation and, once the action footage had been shot and cut, Passion Pictures animated the boy. The animation was passed to The Mill where lead flame artist Barnsley put together the various layers of animation, matte, outline, highlight and the lowlight, to make the animation interact with the live action.
Mill Telecine operator Adam Scott graded the film, giving it a gritty realistic feel and Barnsley worked to match the animated boy to the same look.
The Mill, www.mill.co.uk
(GB)