Over ten days in October 2010 I was working at Nexus Productions in Shoreditch, east London, with the french film directors Fx & Mat on a Coca-Cola television commercial which was intended to be aired in the United States during half-time at the Superbowl, February 7th 2011.
Working closely with the pair I drew more than 80 storyboards detailing their vision of an epic fantasy animation that would be one minute in length and about an invading army of orc ‘fire warriors’ and their dragon. The orcs meet a settlement of Coke-drinking ‘ice dwellers’ and things start to go awry.
The boards began life as rough layouts to establish composition and camera angle which were then, after directors’ approval, worked up in pencil and inked onto tracing paper. There were several meetings in-house to decide content, as well as meetings with the advertising agency (Wieden & Kennedy) and Coca-Cola, the upshot of these being many re-draws and discarded scenes.
The storyboards shown here represent the frames corresponding to the final edit. The characters were created by other artists whose designs I followed. At one point, due to time constraints, I enlisted the help of comic artist Mike Collins to tighten up my pencil layouts, which he would email back to me and I would then ink over to maintain consistency. The quality drops off after the dragon drinks the coke because I was asked to supply about 25 frames in one-and-a-half hours for a crucial meeting.
Working closely with the pair I drew more than 80 storyboards detailing their vision of an epic fantasy animation that would be one minute in length and about an invading army of orc ‘fire warriors’ and their dragon. The orcs meet a settlement of Coke-drinking ‘ice dwellers’ and things start to go awry.
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Storyboards for Nexus Productions' Coca-Cola 'Dragon' TV commercial. Directors Fx & Mat. Art by Roger Mason.
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Storyboards for Nexus Productions' Coca-Cola 'Dragon' TV commercial. Directors Fx & Mat. Art by Roger Mason.
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Storyboards for Nexus Productions' Coca-Cola 'Dragon' TV commercial. Directors Fx & Mat. Art by Roger Mason.
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Storyboards for Nexus Productions' Coca-Cola 'Dragon' TV commercial. Directors Fx & Mat. Art by Roger Mason.
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The boards began life as rough layouts to establish composition and camera angle which were then, after directors’ approval, worked up in pencil and inked onto tracing paper. There were several meetings in-house to decide content, as well as meetings with the advertising agency (Wieden & Kennedy) and Coca-Cola, the upshot of these being many re-draws and discarded scenes.
The storyboards shown here represent the frames corresponding to the final edit. The characters were created by other artists whose designs I followed. At one point, due to time constraints, I enlisted the help of comic artist Mike Collins to tighten up my pencil layouts, which he would email back to me and I would then ink over to maintain consistency. The quality drops off after the dragon drinks the coke because I was asked to supply about 25 frames in one-and-a-half hours for a crucial meeting.