vivo - X90

April 10th 2023

Final Frontier joined forces with agency KARMA once again to tell a feline love story showcasing vivo’s X90 device, with a focus on its low-light shooting prowess. 

vivo X90

Returning to the nocturnal wonderland of the first episode, the story centres on Grandpa Cat, a lifelong lover of amateur dramatics. Despite his passion for treading the boards, our hero always found himself playing a supporting role.  With his final turn before retirement threatening more of the same, Grandma Cat looks to the vivo X90’s low-light shooting function to capture her husband’s performance in crisp glorious detail, giving him one last moment in the limelight.  As the film’s slogan reads, “With love, we can make great things happen”.

KARMA devised the overall concept, world and script. Final Frontier, director Paulo Garcia, and Zombie studio designed the characters, developed the storytelling and produced the animation.

Garcia’s team, Zombie, is one of the world’s top-tier commercial 3D character animation studios, winning dozens of the industry’s most significant prizes.

KARMA share their insights into the overall campaign: 

On the cat world:

Basically everyone loves cats, so we liked the idea of a cat planet.  At the same time, we needed to highlight the product’s selling point, so we came up with the idea that the sun had disappeared and the planet is a nocturnal wonderland where many of the plants have evolved to have a magical glow.

On choosing animation:

We felt that 3D character animation, along with especially cute cats, could really capture the hearts of the audience.  Vivo's previous commercials were previously more inclined to the classic film TVC, and the client wanted to try something different.  They were pretty much sold on the concept from the start.

On the challenges:

The main creative challenge was to tell a story that was closely related to the key selling point of the product, all the while making sure that the flow felt fresh, and not too stiff.  In terms of production, it was a tight schedule and there’s always potential challenges with global time differences between the client, agency, and animation team.  Thankfully, it was a communicative and cooperative process, and everything went smoothly.

On the outcome:

The first film was so well received that the client decided to continue with the sequel and so far that’s also been very popular.  The end results exceeded everyone’s expectations and the audience absolutely loved them both!  I think that’s down to great animation, a heart-warming story, and the super-cuteness of the cats. 

Final Frontier executive producer Chris Colman adds,

To date it’s rare in China to find a client bold enough to go with full CG characters, especially with a brand new, self-created IP.  So, big respect to Vivo for taking that courageous step, and to KARMA, for their creative vision, and for having such a good read on the market about what will resonate. We’ve been happy to partner with both to craft two wildly popular films so far.  There’s a lot of potential with this story world. We’re excited to see what comes next. 

The campaign launched exclusively in China and included a WeChat pop-up platform. 

The film marks the second collaboration between Final Frontier, KARMA and Vivo, following the first episode in 2022, in which Grandpa desperately seeks a solution for his annual wedding anniversary photograph, before divine intervention sends him the new x80 device.  The film was well received by viewers and award juries alike, picking up prizes at One Asia International Creative Awards, Long Xi Creative Award, DIGITALING Awards, and London International Awards (LIA).

vivo X80

Credits

Client: Vivo 

Creative Agency: KARMA

Production Company: Final Frontier

Executive Producer: Chris Colman, Gus Karam, Phoenix Xue, Julieta Zajaczkowski

Executive Creative Director: Claus Cibils

Project Manager: Miranda Tsetskhladze

Animation Production: Zombie Studio

Director: Paulo Garcia

Executive Producer: Natalia Gouvea

Executive Creative Director: Daniel Salles

Producer Director: André Carvalho

Art Director: Marcelo Garcia

CGI Director: Wesley Oliveira

CGI Technical Consultant: Isaac Buzzola

Agenda Coordinator: Kira Nayana

Account Management: Gabriela Leal, Stephanie Wang

Storyboard and Animatic: Gabriel San Marcos, Saulo Brito, Geraldo Sampaio

Concept Artist:  Marcelo Garcia, Pedro Minho

Lookdev Lead: Claudio Jr.

Lookdev: Giovanni Kososki, Ricardo Alves, Claudio Jr, Lélio Alves, Nicolas Aquino, Camilo Franco, Alexandre Trevisan, Douglas Silva

Lighting: Letícia Fagundes

Grooming: Lucas Amaral

Model Lead: Raul Sales

Model: Vitor Semeghini, Ricardo Alves, Raul Sales, Alisson Perin, Lélio Alves, Douglas Silva, Nicolas Aquino, Camilo Franco

Environment: Ale Barbosa

Set Dress: Raul Sales

VFX: Gabriel Marcondes, Alexandre Canário

Rig: Henrique Ribeiro, Felipe Gimenes, Marcos Leite

Animation Director: Paulo Garcia

Animation Supervisor: Alex Ferreira Simões

Technical Animation Supervisor: Gustavo Figueiredo, Lucas Mirkai

Animation Casting: Agora Studio

Animation: Angela Bakmam, Anthony Daniel, Carina Henriksson, Chaiyapak Panaviboonporn, Eliza Aleksanyan, Fabio Pugliese, Jeffry Syahputra, José Ragazan, Juan Diego Zapata, Moise Hergaux-Essame, Puneeth Bagur, Tim van Dulmen

Composition: Letícia Fagundes, Isabela Ferrari, Paulo Chedid, Igor Bezerra

Motion Graphics: Vinicius Kahan

Art Designer: Kaike Gouvea

Assembler: Enrique Pedretti, Carol Nicolletti, Alisson Perin

Financial: Alessandra Cena

TI: Gabriel Paixão, Rodolfo Cultiz 

Audio Production: Antfood Music & Sound Design

Music Director: Lou Schmidt, Fernando Rojo and Tiago Lins

Executive Production: Christiane Rachel and Renato Castro

Composers: Lou Schmidt, Fernando Rojo, Luis Bergmann and Vinicius Nunes

Producers: Fernando Ianni and Monique Munhoz

Sound Engineers: Bruno Broaska, Fabian Jorge and Pablo Homem de Mello