Last year, Sixty40’s Kyra Bartley made Christmas shopping extra-extra-special for Sydney children, with her magical rocket ship ride to Myer’s Christmas Wonderland (aka, the Myer sixth floor lift).
This year, the Sixty40 director has got together with Ideaworks by Y&R to create another wonder-filled children’s experience – a magical train ride to visit Santaland in Myer.
Sixty40 senior producer, Charu Menon, noted, “After the success of last year’s collaboration with Myer on its Wonderland Lift, we were pumped to take on another experiential campaign designed to get families and children into the Christmas spirit.”
The Santaland Express is a two-minute CGI and live-action film viewed through the windows of the “train” – turning the ride into a fantasy voyage from Myer Central Station, across the Australian outback, up into the clouds and back down to the North Pole.
The experience is housed inside purpose-built train carriage installations located across major Myer stores around the country, and the windows are built into the carriage walls to create the illusion of watching a wonderful world whizzing past outside.
Bartley, who worked with Heckler CG lead artist, Luke Carvell, admitted that one of the main project challenges, for her as a director and for the team, was adapting to the scale of screens.
“There are four screens on each side of the train, so it was essentially a hyper-wide screen aspect showing a constantly travelling world outside,” she explained.
“It meant there was a lot of ground to cover and much content to create for the experience to come to life. Luke devised a balanced and seamless combination of live action footage, 3D and high res stills, to give us plenty of room to play in a world that felt engaging and fun.”
To make the voyage as real as possible, Bartley incorporated a dual sense of time. Foreground elements move at real-time speed, while background elements and skies move in time-lapse, taking the viewer from day to night and back to day again.
Y&R ANZ regional head of retail, Danny Lattouf, commented, “Myer has such a strong Christmas legacy and we were humbly charged with delivering a truly special experience for tens of thousands of kids in Australia.”
“We were inspired by the opportunity to bring the things we loved about the traditions of celebrating Christmas as children and pair that with the incredible innovations we experience through technology today. Our aim was to create the ultimate Christmas adventure. A place where childhood Christmas never ends.”
Adults can have the behind-the-scenes experience here:
Credits
Agency: Ideaworks by Y&R
Art Director: Tom Denton
Copywriter: Tina Funder
Account Director: Jacinda Tree
Account Executive: Caitlin Thomas
Senior Producer: Meredyth Judd
Animation: Sixty40
Director: Kyra Bartley
Senior Producer: Charu Menon
DoP: Rupert Brown
Behind-the-Scenes Photography: David Collins
Post Production: Heckler
Executive Producer: Will Alexander
VFX Supervisor: Jamie Watson
CG Lead Artist: Luke Carvell
Compositor Lead: Bertrand Polivka
Colourist: Greg Constantaras
Lead Production and Installation Agency: Active Display Group
Screens and Media Players: Lymlive Media
Santa and Helpers Staffing: Solution Entertainment
Client: Myer