"Olive Oil" ...the latest instalment in the PAMS world. Once again, Geoff Kirk-Smith at Oktobor, or "Geoff" as we call him around the office, animated what would have been some questionable character elements - rarely provided to him with the correct amount limbs. We are friends again now after counselling and a one off cash payment.

Connoisseurs in the audience would have noticed the Queens trolley filled with bran and prunes...and pearl necklaces on the attacking Corgis of course.

This 75" spot for PAMS is the first of a series that will run in New Zealand. It was an epic process working from pitch with the agency, through early script and finally design and animation. The characters were designed in illustrator, then modelled and animated by the talented Geoff Kirk Smith of Oktobor. For more project info read on here...

This is the second commercial I’ve directed for Lexus Australia. It consisted of two shoots, one for the animals and a studio shoot for the car. There were some interesting challenges with filming this project. For a more in depth breakdown read on here...

I was involved with this project from the early script stage. I co-directed the live acton shoot with Sam Peacocke who also edited the final spot. It was shot on a couple of Canon 5D MK2's in one day on a greenscreen. Sam shot all the motion, while I shot stills simultaneously. I then combined the stills with the footage and graphic elements into a CG environment. The elements then got re purposed for in-store and print. Music by Oli Chang at Nylon in Sydney. See more

I animated this commercial all in 3DS Max and created the design elements in Illustrator....I know, I know... bit of a different approach, but it's great having nice lighting shadows with vector art. If you ever buy Boost, drink it while it's still fizzing...otherwise it tastes like flat Raro...just letting you know.

This project was made exclusively for Vodafone in Qatar. My role involved winning the pitch, establishing the design/animation style, and working out the production process (combining live action studio, 3D, After Effects) The talented Matt Von Trott was lead animator, Craig (Crackles) Speakman & Geoff (Kirk) Kirk-Smith executed all the 3D.

The brief for this project was "create a car commercial for VW only using the VW logo.....yikes...bit like, cook me something really nice for dinner...but only use mushrooms......the end result I think has a nice discipline about it.. ...and I like commercials that end by slapping the viewer in the face with the brand. Like the Lexus spots, this one was shot in a studio, this time on skates (pushed around by grips) with the wheels being replaced in 3D.

I did a handful of these commercials for Cerebos Greggs in 2008. The real challenge was using food in animation and keeping it playful...and keeping the apetite appeal. My design work was taken through to all of the point of sale, web, in store etc.. Click here to see more spots from the series.

Directing a Singapore Airlines commercial was a pretty amazing experience. The airlines brand had such a legacy attached to it, taking them into 'animaition land' - and the 21st century was a real challenge on many levels.. read on here...

This commercial was all shot in a studio just out of Sydney with two cars on a turntable. I built background environments/skies in 3D and comp'd them in After Effects, Nigel Mortimer did all the road surface contact, shadows etc.. in Flame. All the blue textural transitions were achieved with ink tank plates, gas fire and cream spills on black. These were all used as transition mattes between the black and blue car. The challenge with directing this spot was writing a treatment that didn't require the car to be moving (because of budget). Once again I pre-vised everything in 3D first and got the client around the concept long before the camera gear came out.

I did a series of these commercials in 2009. They all involved heavily treating, re-animating and compositing over stock footage. All the lighting effects and elements were glued togther in after effects. I've put a little breakdown of a couple of shots here...

This latest series of Mac's commercials took the packaging design further into TV land. It was important that these spots didn't feel like a computer had been involved.

My roll on this project was animation director. This involved the intitial design phase and working out basically what happens in each shot. The animation was executed by the very clever Sean Dekkers in 3DS Max and After Effects. The job went through so many revisions that Sean is only just talking to me again. .....ha ha ha...seriously though...

Making a TV commercial for an Art exhibition is tough. It's the wrong place to show the art really. We realised this half way through the project and abandoned the idea, favouring instead these little shrines to the times and poeple that made the art happen. This version was completed in 2 Weeks in AE...sheesh. Back in 2005 (before there was an proliferation of symetrical animation) this commercial picked up quite a few awards here, in Australia and at Canne for animation, art direction and typography.

These spots were directed by Adam Stevens of Robbers Dog. My job was to take perfectly good looking footage and ruin it in Flame by adding super8 nasty-ness and hokey graphics all over the place. VO is by Jermaine Clement of 'Flight of the Conchords' fame...yes, ...New Zealand is that small. More disturbing is the flash frame at the start - myself and Steen (producer) in size -2 Stubbies. Client didn't seem to mind this going in to the spot.

Back in 2004 this project was the result of a lengthy design and animation phase under the watchful eye of Len Cheeseman. It picked up quite a few awards here and offshore...it became impractical to transport some of the pencils back at one particular show... Client = happy, Jonny = Tired

The demographic for this commercial was 4-80 year olds....so, humans basically. I've been fascinated by how to treat food in animation. Apetite appeal vs cultural sensitivity...always a tough one. There's a fantasitc Sigraph white paper on the Pixar site that was created for "Ratatouille". It deals with everything from lighting, shading for apetite appeal when creating CG food.