Ben Liam Jones Brings Center Parcs' 'Bears' To Life

We know what it’s like - the festive season has been and gone, the New Year’s party is still ringing in our ears and work has forced us to recognise that there’s more than one 7 o’clock in a day yet again. There’s only one way to get through those January blues, and that’s to pin your hopes on a glorious upcoming holiday. Such is the plight of the protagonist in Center Parcs’ wonderful new campaign ‘Bears’, whose 2016 start is a little more grizzly than most…

Directed by Mustard’s Ben Liam Jones, the spot sees a downbeat bear eschew the humdrum mundanery of office life to spend some time with his similarly distracted family in the wilds of Center Parcs. Backed by a rendition of Cyndi Lauper’s ‘True Colours’ and gorgeously telling the tale through relatable vignettes, the commercial’s real triumph is the cast of bears themselves, all wonderfully realised through life-like animation and placed firmly in ‘reality’ with Jones’ deft hand.

We were touched by the simple message of togetherness, so grabbed hold of Ben and bear-hugged him until he answered a few of our questions.

How did you get involved in the project?

The agency (Brothers and Sisters) had recently worked with Electric Theatre Collective on a brilliant Sky Sports campaign featuring the king himself, Thierry Henry. The ECD Andy Fowler was keen to work with those guys again and Lee Pavey, Exec Producer at ETC, recommended me to B&S. After that it was your usual pitch process against other directors. A process that I was delighted to win.     
 
Did you have to do much prep to get to grips with bears? Did you do any movement study or anything like that?

I watched every bear documentary that I could get my hands on. These helped shape ideas for the backend of the story and as a reference points for their movements. After grasping the basic idea, we got actors involved that specialised in physical based performance. Mama bear was played by the guy who did the physical performance part of Groot in Guardians Of The Galaxy, I thought that was pretty cool. 

Did you shoot many tests to check on the technology? Was there anything you were worried about achieving?

I worried about the storytelling, ETC worried about the CGI. That’s how it has to be. Let good people to their jobs, which is harder than it sounds.  

How did you shoot the commercial? Was it a combo of animatronic and visual effects or purely CGI?

As a performance-based director I need to see things play out in front of me. We aimed for the best physical performers we could find and almost treated things as if they were real. This was helpful for establishing the timings for the edit and giving the client something to see and sign off. Shooting lots of plates without actors is so cold and lacks any emotion. We knew our story worked before any VFX happened.

The animators took these performances as a guide for the CGI action, adding a touch of real bear movement in as well to make it feel real.

How was it directing the actors portraying the bears? Did you give notes in a similar way to how you would for human characters? Were there any ‘I don’t think a bear would do that’ moments?

We mostly treated things as if they were real bears and we prepped the performers to think this way. But you tell a kid “act like a bear”, you try getting them to stop. Nightmare! 

All the emotions featured are primal and universal, as in we can understand if most mammals are happy or sad… you only have to watch an Attenborough doc to know how easy you can emotionally connect with a furry character. As a result I knew it would read without making them too human. 

The shoot was pretty well planned, in my humble opinion, so I designed things knowing the movements wouldn’t bridge into anything too human like. 

Is this your first time directing a FX-heavy film? How did the process differ?

The story is king, so I tried to think of it in exactly the same manner. The main difference was the prep needed. I’m quite a spontaneous filmmaker and I love leaving the camera rolling to get those organic off the cuff moments. That approach doesn’t really work with this type of production.

I loved the idea of challenging myself and proving that I could work within parameters that were more disciplined. Everything was boarded to a level I’ve not done before, lots of animatics, 3D Pre visualizations etc. Going back to live-action I have no doubt I’m now a better director from the experience. 

We can imagine the post-production period was longer than normal. How hands-on did you get? Did you need to give notes on the digital characters’ expressions and gestures?

I’ve got OCD so I was very involved. Most of the time our animators were interpreting the human actors' performance. From there we tweaked endlessly - If we never had such a tight turnaround I’m sure I would be there tweaking now and I loved that experience.  

Everything comes together in those last two weeks and it takes lots of faith to sit back and let people do their jobs. Every time you panic (which happened), you slow the process. You need to trust that you’re working with talented people, which I clearly was. 

Were you pleased with the result? How did it feel to see it put together for the first time?

My thoughts were … “I wonder if I can get a gig directing Paddington 2"?  

Joking aside, it happens so slowly you get robbed of that moment where something just works and comes to life on the edit timeline. I’m obviously pleased with the results, if I wasn’t I would be drinking in a dark room and wouldn’t be speaking to you guys. 

This is a big Christmas/New Year job – how proud are the folks?!

It was a Christmas with the same question from friends and family… “How did you do the bears then?” It was a touch embarrassing because all that magic was other people’s hard work. I just told them it was “complicated”. But I really want a Christmas advert next year - I love a snow machine.   

The ad couldn’t really be more different to the brutal Childline spot/short that garnered you plaudits a few years ago. Do you have a form you prefer to work in? Are you planning on diversifying further in the future?

One thing I’ve learnt quite quickly is that you can’t plan, you just evolve and there is very little control over how that happens. For 18 months after ChildLine I lost nearly every job because I was too dark... then I pitched on anything with kids in, then I become the fast food guy after KFC (I got sent 5 KFC scripts from different territories around the world) … I might only get CGI scripts for the next 12 months now. You just don’t know in this game… and I kind of like that. If the idea is good, I’m always happy to pitch. 

What’s up next for you?

I’m shooting a few ads that will take me into Feb… then like every director I need to get a short film away to soothe the soul.