MrCake: The advent calendar, two years running

MrCake · 3D and animation, Commercial, Social media

A nutcracker that comes to life, and the year after a whole village folded from paper.

The job

MrCake wanted advertising for its advent calendar. The calendar box is designed as a nutcracker, so the main character already existed. We only had to bring it to life!

The first year

We turned the box into a 3D character that wakes up and walks across a Christmas table full of candles and spruce, until the calendar opens and shows what is behind the doors. The film was delivered in three lengths, the shortest at seven seconds.

The second year

The year after we were asked again, with a new calendar and Santa's workshop as the setting. The thought was first a flat stop motion with cut-out figures. During the groundwork we saw that something with more depth was possible, and proposed a village made entirely of folded paper. MrCake said yes at once.

How we did it

Paper that looks hand folded turned out to be hard to make in the computer. So we folded the models for real and 3D scanned them. Then came the next question: the nutcracker is a box, and how does a box walk? It took many tries before the walk was right. For the narrator we knocked on the door of a neighbour in the building, the voice actor Bengt Skogholt, who read the tale in our sound studio.

Thanks to MrCake and Roy Fares for the trust, two Christmases running.