Eight D&AD awards added to Nexus Productions' 'Grrr!' tally

At the recent D&AD 2005 Awards, Nexus Productions took home eight awards for the Honda 'Grrr!' commercial directed by Smith and Foulkes for Weiden & Kennedy.
The film not only picked up two Gold Awards but six Silver Awards at the celebrated event.
The film is for Honda's first diesel engine, which is acclaimed as one of the least noisy, cleanest and most refined engines on the market. Wieden & Kennedy were taken by the idea of how hating pollution could be used as something positive, a passionate force that could be turned to good use, and the slogan "Hate Something Change Something" was born.
Wieden & Kennedy turned to Nexus directors Smith & Foulkes to imagine and create a landscape of positive hate. The resulting animation is a gloriously colourful fly through that follows dirty diesels as they antagonise a world of bunnies, fish, flamingos, rainbows and flowers who destroy the engines in exchange for something better.
The animation was created at the Nexus studio in London over a period of three months working with a large team of animators and modellers, led by Smith & Foulkes and Nexus Head of 3D Darren Price.
In addition to the triumph at the D&AD awards the commercial is already the world's most awarded commercial of the year so far, winning four BTAA Awards including the overall Best Commercial prize, the Platinum award at Creative Circle and Campaign's "Ad of the Year 2004".
Joint Managing Directors Chris O'Reilly and Charlotte Bavasso, said: "It is always nice for a piece of work to be singled out for prizes and we're delighted for Smith & Foulkes. There has been a lot of work we have been very happy with from the studio over the last year, but Grr! has been a phenomenon. It was a great collaboration between all the people involved from the agency, right through to all the many animators and modellers who worked on it."
Founded in 1997 by Chris O'Reilly and Charlotte Bavasso, Nexus Productions is an independent animation production company with an internationally acclaimed roster of directing talent who produce films, TV series, commercials, music videos and title sequences.
(SP)