smith & foulkes

I found smith & foulkes when i discovered the production company "nexus" and i found that i was a huge fan of the work they had been doing but i just didn't know they were the ones behind it until now, so i decide to do some research iinto them and where they came from to get where thay are in the industry.

Smith & Foulkes graduated from the Royal College of Art animation course in 1997 and then teamed up with producers Chris O’Reilly and Charlotte Bavasso at nexus studios, they have won coutless awards for there commercial work including a grand prix award at cannes lions, an ITV Award for Best Commercial and two Golds at the D&AD awards. in 2006 they were the most awarded comercial directors in the us and europe.

The work they are well known for is there cgi for huge brands including coca-cola, motorola, robinsons and honda, what first drew me too there work was when i was shown there coca-cola advert entitled "video game" which is an adaptation of grand theft auto whic his a well know game for violence, car theft amongst other things, but what they did was flip the game on its head to work with the coka-cola message, the advert starts of much in the way of grand theft auto with a car tearign down the street almost hitting people and then a thug like looking character leaping out and heading into a shop where the shop worker throws his hands up only to be handed money for the bottle of coke the main character picks up and this is where we start to see what the advert is about, the main character carrys on his journey doing various good deads along the way but what is nice abou this is the little details that they have put in on what is typically quite a cliche idea of the bad guy doing good things, the details that make it stand out is the little details that show they no the game they are parodying well for example as the chartacter walks down the street we hear the sound of a gun beign drawn only for his to pull out a fire extinguisher and put out a fire and, the character looks as if he's going ot car jack someone only to get pull them out of there car to hand them a bottle of coke and its little details like this that make the animation come to life and show that its not just someone tryign to use the success of a videogame to sell there product.

Another thign a really like about ther work is the detail of what they create its all very clean and it looks as though there are no corners cut and that there is somethign to see anywhere but your not going to get a chance to take it all in in just a few viewings, for example in the coke video game advert the character models are liek that in the real video game, they have similar characteristics but only they are even more detaield and every character in the animation looks different to another, and the city is incredably detailed all the textures look perfect and are incredaly detailed down to the torn piece of a poster left on a wall adn it just makes you want to have the enviroment there infront of you to explore every inch of it.