Buddy the Elf waltzed onto screens across the UK in supermarket ASDA’s 2022 Christmas commercial, as he applied to become an employee at the store. Selected footage of iconic moments and phrases from the existing film Elf were extracted and built into the advert. 

The Third Floor London was called on to help visualize how the film clips would integrate with newly filmed material of the ASDA store. The TTF team based their work on storyboards and dialog from the original film, as well as a script.

Artists created the ‘vis using plate material from the film, combining that with previs of the eventual new ad shoot, referencing both the film and location and props from the actual ASDA supermarket.

“The concept was to use some existing elements of film footage and bring them into a new supermarket location based on Lidar scans,” Visualization Supervisor Andrew McCully stated. “In order to make Buddy really feel part of the ASDA supermarket, extra shots were needed to bridge footage from the original film and work with action specific to the supermarket, which wasn’t in the film.  Previs helped visualize these shots in particular so the team would know before the shoot how the new shots would work together with the original footage.”

“For the previs, we created a CG double of the Buddy character that could be positioned in the new shots and location,” he continued.  “Through visualization, we were able to work with the client to develop a clear plan based on their storyboards for where they would need to shoot background plates and actors in the supermarket set.”