Animal Crackers in Her Milk

Animal crackers come to life in a new TV commercial from San Francisco-based Goodby Silverstein & Partners for the California Milk Processors Board. In the ad, the talking cookies save themselves by knocking over a little girl’s glass of milk when she leaves the room. A look at how Venice-based special-effects firm Digital Domain created the commercial:

1. The crew filmed the girl delivering her lines and took background shots of the kitchen.

2. Animators took pictures of animal crackers and scanned them into a computer. Using these pictures, they mapped out the cookies in computer graphics, using what’s known as a wire frame to create the bodies.

3. Animators measured the kitchen table and used the dimensions to create a set in the computer. Using this digital set, they animated the eight cookies into the live-action scenes. First the cookies are shown breaking through the cellophane on the front of the box and thenrunning toward the glass of milk.

4. The artists animated each cookie according to how they thought the animal would act, said Fred Raimondi, the commercial’s animation director at Digital Domain. These personalities are apparent when the animal crackers knock over the milk--notice the kangaroo kicking theglass and the rhino pushing it with its backside.