Nexus directors Smith & Foulkes brew up two-minutes of apocalyptic fun for a serious cause in this broadcast and cinema spot boosting awareness for Stand Up To Cancer, the partnership between Channel 4 and Cancer Research UK, billed as a ‘killer night of fundraising.’

Smith & Foulkes: “The initial brief was to turn the table on cancer, depicting the disease as a civilization spreading aggressively – unable to prevent its own Armageddon in the style of a disaster movie.

“The main challenge was how to visualize the cancer cells. We wanted to steer away from the obvious route of showing cells as a bunch of grotesque alien germs, but we were also acutely aware of not making them too human or cute.”

“We also had to find a way to illustrate the new therapies, drugs and scientific breakthroughs that are fighting Cancer. We wanted their arrival to be initially magical and mysterious. so we used a glowing blue orb, an unexplained light descending upon a shadowy world.

“Disaster Movies rely heavily on vast visual spectacle and a cast of thousands, so working within our time constraints we decided to recreate this using 2D matt paintings to show a sense of the city without having to model every building.

“This gave it an illustrative and richly textured feel. Modeling and animating our cast in 3D gave us the flexibility of performance we wanted, and made them stand out from their environment.”

Client: Channel 4 Television / CRUK

Agency: 4Creative
Creative Directors: Chris Bovill / John Allison
Creative: Pablo Gonzalez de la Pena
Agency Producer: Shananne Lane
Group Business Director: Olivia Browne
Business Director: Kuba Wieczorek
Group Marketing Manager: Charlie Palmer
Marketing Manager: Daisy Mount

Production Company: Nexus
Director: Smith & Foulkes
ECD: Chris O’Reilly
Producer: Tracey Cooper
Production Manager: Fernanda Garcia Lopez
Technical Director: Dave Walker
Art Director: Daniel Burgess
Design: Renaud Futterer
Character Modeler: Sohrab Esfehani
Character Modeler: Denis Bodart
Modeler: Margherita Balestri
Animator: Dominic Griffths
Animator: Sergei Shabarov
Rigger & Animator: Paul Tempelman
Animator: Benoit Lecailtel
Matte Painter: Adam Willis
Matte Painter: Yohann Auroux
Texture Artist: Camille Fourniols
Texture Artist: Alex Veux
Texture Artist: Roxane Martinez
L&R: Michal Firkowski
L&R: Denis Bodart
L&R: Francois Mancone
L&R: Camille Fourniols
L&R: Jeremi Boutelet
Compositor: Elliott Kajdan
Compositor: Rob Ward
VFX: Claire Pegorier
VFX: Thanos Topouzis

Editor: Paul Hardcastle @ TRIM

Grade: Mike Skrgatic @ Time Based Arts

Sound Design & Mix: Anthony Moore, Dan Beckwith & Tom Joyce @ Factory
Sound Producer: Lou Allen @ Factory
Music Production: Company: SIREN
Music Producer: Sean Atherton & Sian Rogers
Music Composed by: Alex Baranowski
Music Production Company: SIREN
Music Producer: Sean Atherton & Sian Rogers
Music Composed by: Alex Baranowski

Live Action Production Company: 4Creative
Live Action Director: Keith McCarthy
Live action Producer: Shananne Lane
Director of Photography: Christopher Sabogal

Live Action VFX: MPC
Live Action Grading: George K @ MPC