A collaborative effort to bring Santas sleigh to the skies over Jersey
Christmas comes but once a year… Although as an animator it can feel like the season lasts a fair bit longer!
I joke, I always love getting into the Christmas spirit, so was excited when I was approached about this project by Visit Jersey.
The brief was simple. Capture Santa flying across Jersey, in 60 seconds no less, to celebrate different aspects of the Island. Only one problem… Santa’s a pretty busy guy!
But not to fear, that’s where I stepped in. With the rights to his likeness signed over (unfortunately, we couldn’t get Rudolph, what a diva!) the pressure was on!
The pressure was on! We had to wait for the Christmas lights to be turned on before we could start filming, but as I’m sure fellow residents of the British Isles will understand, clear weather is anything but a given at this time of year! Fortunately, the stars aligned and the very talented Callum Thorne and Bam Perspectives managed to get the shots and stay dry in the process allowing us to pull this all together in time to get this out well before Christmas.
With the video plates captured and edited, it was just down to me to animate Santa’s path across the Island. Fortunately, a project a few years prior to this left me pretty well set up for a relatively quick turnaround. Reindeer ready and Sleigh revamped, there was just the little matter of fairy dust! Why do particle effects never seem to want to cooperate?!
I had a lot of fun working on this project, as cheesy as it is, there’s always something magical about spreading that Christmas cheer!
Massive thanks to the ground (and aerial) team on the tools.
Callum Thorne – Ground shots and editing
Bam Perspectives – Aerial Shots
And here’s a little breakdown of some of the work that went into this edit!
