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‘Yoda vs. Darth Maul’ Brisk Ad: Not Stop Motion
January 9, 2012
The animated Brisk Iced Tea Ads has had a long tradition of being handmade, tactile real using the technique of stop motion animation. That was the magnetic draw and appeal of these commercial spots … being actual real puppets with over-sized caricatured heads on small bodies of well known celebrities. A cartoon-esque aesthetics design of having real dimensionality where you can almost touch it because the audience knows the characters are actual REAL PUPPETS (See how many times I will say ‘real’ 
)
It is difficult to find documented history of the beginnings of the ‘That’s Brisk Baby’ Stop Motion animated spots (not even from the Lipton site). Off the top of my head, roughly, I think it may have been around 1997, with Sylvester Stallone maybe being the first one and I think the Babe Ruth Brisk spot premiered for the 1998 Super Bowl. There were other Brisk Ads during that time … Bruce Willis, George Jefferson, Frank Sinatra, Karate Kid, Bruce Lee, Elvis, James Brown. The last Brisk stop motion during that decade was around 2002, where the Brisk puppets went on strike and Danny DeVito as the main celeb caricatured in stop motion puppet form. After the DeVito Brisk campaign, Lipton discontinued all forms of the stop motion ads, however, almost 10 years later, a revival of a new original stop motion animated ad appeared in 2010 called ‘The Way of the Brisk‘ with Chuck Liddell MMA champ (Mixed Marital Arts), then in 2011 a very big revival of the Brisk Ads with Ozzie Ozbournee & Danny Trejo (aka Machete) playing the caricature puppets, then culminated with the big premiere in the 2011 Super Bowl, with Eminem doing the major Brisk ad for the mega millions of the public to see. The past Brisk Ads described above used real stop motion animation methods.
So this past week a brand NEW Brisk Iced Tea Ad has debuted, ‘Yoda vs. Darth Maul’ and it has had some viral spread on the internet. As far as I can tell, most of the articles, postings, & comments of this new Brisk ad, have NOT questioned whether this was created using the actual Stop Motion or CGI technique (they are commenting & complaining mostly about G. Lucas). Take a look and you can judge for yourself about the ‘pretend’ Stop Motion ….
Has the general audience been so indoctrinated with the CGI onslaught that they now do NOT know of other forms of animation styles or do not appreciate? Good job CGI proselytizers …. you have maybe succeeded in brainwashing the masses into accepting the One World Order of CGI! You first did it with the Pillsbury Doughboy. When you succeeded with that, you went further for Bob the Builder, Postman Pat, and I’m maybe missing other originally produced stop motion characters that have been CGI Zombified.
How do I know ‘Yoda vs Darth Maul‘ is NOT Stop Motion? The first rumblings was from our sort-of underground Stop Motion message board. I looked further, and sure enough, only a scant few postings on the internet, do allude to, that this Yoda/Maul ad was CGI …. Andy Glass Blog Spot quote, “The animation is fantastic and they did a great job emulating the stop-motion look and feel of the Brisk campaign.” and here Animopus Blog, quote, “Done by Aatma Studio in San Francisco!” LIO note: Aatma Studio lists itself as a 3D Animation & digital content studio (aka CGI).
The last 2010-11 series of Brisk ads (Osbourne, Trejo, and Eminem) were done under the creative control of Mekanism Ad Agency in San Francisco and they hired an entire crew of craftspeople, artists, modelmakers, technicians, and stop motion animators to produce the series of the real animated puppets. Mekanism also was the overseer of this current 2012 CGI synthesized (not stop motion) Yoda/Maul Brisk ad. I am NOT casting aspersions or negatively criticizing the ad agency or any of the people who worked on this pseudo not actually Stop Motion project. Who knows …. it could have possibly been a tight production budget & especially, impossible deadline time pressures dictated by the client, Pepsico (owner of Lipton). I know it may be not intentional, but the perception to me, it’s kind of disingenuous of Lipton/Pepsico to somewhat or indirectly masquerade a CGI created animation as Stop Motion, taking advantage of the legacy of the previous Brisk ads. Pepisco does not exactly say that it is Stop Motion, but instead they describe it as, “The next generation of stop motion” or something similar.
Below is the REAL DEAL STOP MOTION ….
East Coast USA created/produced by Bright Red Pixels – 2010
UK created/produced by Loose Moose Productions – 2002
Disclaimer: Anyone out here with an affinity for CGI should not be pissed-off at this SMW News post. This is a friggn pro-Stop Motion emphasis website! Remember that saying … ‘Do not kill the Messenger’. I merely search, report, and comment/observate what is ‘out there on’ the internet & other news sources. If you put out there and online, EXPECT … the good, the bad, & the ugly (in the form of feedback, comments, opinions, etc.)
LINKS: Some past Brisk Ads – SMW News: Way of the Brisk – SMW News: Eminem Brisk – Brisk Youtube Channel
Topics: Commercials-Ads-TV-Net, Miniatures - Models - Puppets, Puppet Animation, Stop Motion | 15 Comments »
Not Brisk Baby! Having worked on a Brisk ad, I take this extra personally. (Way of the Brisk) I got into this business because of my love for the original Star Wars trilogy and practically worshiped the original Frank Oz version of Yoda… so everything about this ad makes me want to pull my hair out in clumps!!!
Ahhh, I should have consulted with you first for title of this SMW News post …’Not Brisk Baby!’ or ‘That’s not Brisk Baby!’… on point & says it all.
so playing on the upcoming/re-newed Star-Wars whatever – maybe they just tried to ‘blend in’ with going CGI. Or whatever. Sigh.
Hope this doesn’t mean one more down the drain, but then – as long as there are people out there expressing heart and soul trough tactile craft like stop-motion animation.
Join the rebellion against the dark arts or whatever works. It’s good to see the lighthouse of LIO still burning the brightes light in these dark time.
I didn’t watch the Danny Devito one until just now… well isn’t THAT the utmost in irony aye? It’s really making me suspect that the art director on the Yoda/Maul spot was thinking he could really get away with fooling us into thinking those were real puppets.
It drives me crazy when people use computers to try and “get that (insert art style here) look.” If you want it to look like stop motion, then use stop motion. If you want your illustration to have a “painterly” look, then paint…with paints. Grrrr……
The first time I saw it I thought Yoda (yada,yada,yada- QUIT TALKING BACKWARDS- Paleeeze!) looked just like the CG one in the newer Star Wars films. The airbrush-y, blurry artifact-y yet synthetic look. The Maul face looked like an actor painted up- the Shiny look could possibly be done with CGI because it is inherently Shiny.
Phoney, it looks.
“It drives me crazy when people use computers to try and “get that (insert art style here) look.” If you want it to look like stop motion, then use stop motion. If you want your illustration to have a “painterly” look, then paint…with paints. Grrrr……”
As it is after all just one format among formats it’s rather unnecessary to put it’s value above that of other expressive forms just because it’s easy to use. More variety is always good. As far as I’m concerned it’s mostly the younger generations who do that and it’s gotten a bit too generalized as a fashion. CGI is easy to use and widely used but it doesn’t mean that it is going to replace everything.
All the industry does is deliver to demand that is rather simple minded in the case of media entertainment. As people with creative resources we can influence new demand by giving people something they haven’t experienced before. Rather worth doing as we experience CGI all too often. Just tap into that toolbox of yours called imagination and blow the youth’s minds.
Just my own sense & gut feeling … I am putting this at the doorstep of the corporate Pepisco ’suits’. Not on Mekanism Ad Agency.
Last year, Mekanism went ALL OUT in producing REAL Hand Made Stop Motion Brisk Iced Tea Ads (Osbourne, Trejo, & Eminem supe bowl) following the tradition of the classic animated Brisk ads of the past. I am guessing that project had a much higher budget and maybe somewhat sufficient production schedule. Mekanism hired high quality talent in the practical fx area that included, modelmakers, artists, techs, craftspeople, stop motionists, etc. in the San Francisco Bay Area.
As I said in this SMW News post, it is possible that Pepisco put the pressure on Mekanism with way LESS budget and impossible time deadline schedule. You all know how it is with ‘clients’ … dictating, mandating, pressuring, perpetual changes, and so on … and they play cheap with the budget. I could do another tirade on that too
Either that, or it was LUCAS himself who decided (dictated) that the folks at his Skywalker Ranch would handle it and ‘nobody would know the difference’. This was clearly produced to promote the stereo 3D version of ‘Episode 1′ that will be released soon so, I’m sure his greedy fingers and sweaty palms were involved in the decision making here.
And the mystery/plot thickens!
Hmmm …. it’s possible, possible.
“PHONY, IT LOOKS.”
Indeed!
To try to pass off CGI as stopmotion in that way is utterly contemptible, and they need calling out on it because what they’re doing is essentially fraudulent (here in the UK we’d say they were ‘violating the Trades Descriptions Act’) – if they want it to look like stopmotion, USE stopmotion; if they don’t, use CGI instead.
But in the longer term, by shifting to CGI I honestly don’t think it will make any difference to how many units of Brisk Tea they shift, which is what counts to them, because the demographic they’re aimed at doesn’t really care what techniques are used.
And I say this not as someone who ‘always vouches for CGI’, as was rather patronisingly said of me at the SMA forum recently, but because I generally deplore the FACT that audiences are quite happy to lap up generic CGI tat because that is what they are increasingly fed, both at the cinema and on DVD and – crucially – in computer games which they spend FAR MORE TIME WITH than either going to the cinema or watching DVDs.
People’s tastes ARE moulded by what they’re offered – a lot more Big Macs are eaten every year than tender beef steaks. Sad, but true.
Incidentally, if anyone wants to contact PepsiCo regarding this new promotional campaign, then rather than using their crappy online comments form, you might want to email them at the following:
PepsiCo Corporate Media Inquiries:
pepsicomediarelations@pepsico.com
Or PepsiCo Beverages Americas Media Inquiries:
mediarelations@pepsico.com
By the way, as regards the following I said in an earlier comment:
“…And I say this not as someone who ‘always vouches for CGI’, as was rather patronisingly said of me at the SMA forum recently…”
I wish to withdraw it and apologise to the person I referred to. I now realise that what he said wasn’t meant in any kind of mean spirit, and I overreacted by referring to his comments as ‘patronising’. He’ll know who he is if he reads this, but I don’t want to name him here as I don’t want to blow this up any more and detract from the main point of this thread which is about PEPSICO and their (at best disingenuous) coverage of their Brisk promotion!