These latest prizes bring the duo of animation directors’ total to over 60 awards, making them the most awarded in Spain. 23lunes is a Barcelona-based creative animation specialized in advertising spots, films and footage for video games.
At the WARC Awards, The Doll that Chose to Drive came away with the Bronze in the Effective Use of Brand Purpose category. “For us the WARC prize is the cherry on the cake following the fifty or so awards we had already won for this campaign, which, as you can imagine, holds a special place in our hearts”, said Jordi García.
He went on to add that, “bearing in mind the small percentage of animation spots within the overall advertising production, we feel particularly proud to be competing shoulder to shoulder with big global campaigns. And when you add it to the Eficacia Prize in 2017 as the most effective spot of the year in Spain, it means a big endorsement for animation.”
The Doll that Chose to Drive, conceived by the Proximity Barcelona agency, led by Eva Santos, was the most internationally successful Spanish created and produced Audi campaign in history. It was used in over 30 countries and has been seen over 30 million times all over the world. It is also Audi’s first 3D animation spot. When you couple this with the fact that it was the first ever animation campaign for the automobile industry, it makes the project so special and ground-breaking.
Made entirely in Spain, the spot was originally conceived to last 80 seconds. “But once we started working on it we realised that the story needed three minutes, so we could give it a much more cinematographic feel and move away from more conventional advertisement based on fragmented action”, Bor Arroyo explained.
On the other hand, Ever After, a campaign by Proximity Barcelona for Audi made in conjunction with 23lunes, was one of the big hits at the recent 33rd El Sol Ibero-American Advertising Communication Festival. The spot, a follow-up to The Doll that Chose to Drive, used in 41 different markets worldwide, was awarded the Grand Prize for Brand Content, as well as a staggering eleven other prizes (five golds, two silvers and four bronzes).
“Winning here at El Sol is a huge boost for 23lunes because the festival caters to all Latin-American countries, where there is always such a high level, which makes it all the more important for our studio”, Jordi García said.
For 23lunes, this project, combining 3D animation and real images, confirmed many things. Jordi García explained: “First of all, the trust placed in use by Proximity and by Audi, because as directors it is hugely important that they take you into consideration for their top-shelf projects. Secondly, it was an incredibly difficult production, not just because of the artistic quality required but also for questions of timing. The fact that we were able to create and produce something like Ever After in Spain has given us great motivation and even more confidence to continue working to the same demanding standards.”
The story of 23lunes started when the directors Jordi&Bor decided to set up a studio to produce their own projects and create the best animation pieces they could imagine. García said “we wanted to differentiate ourselves from other studios who undertake the directing as a collective, and instead to do it as a duo of directors specialized in animation.”
The duo immediately started to work for Hollywood in the movie Ender’s Game, where they were commissioned with the production of The Mind Game sequence under Digital Domain and the director Gavin Hood. “When we finished we decided to dedicate ourselves exclusively to producing animation pieces directed by ourselves, paying special attention to the characters, which, for us, are our actors. Our thinking is that if we can create a great character, then the public will want to see more of it”, Jordi claimed.
Examples like The Doll that Chose to Drive are a good demonstration of just how far a character can reach, to the point that most people know the spot as “the one with the Audi doll”, and it has gone on to become a worldwide hit, winning loads of prizes at international festivals like Cannes, El Sol, El Ojo..., where few animation pieces have ever made much of an impact before.