Danone Dino Commercial

Danonino, Danone’s dairy range for children, is fronted by a dinosaur mascot, and this commercial belongs to him: a fully computer-generated spot in which the character and a pair of young divers explore a sunken wreck on the seabed. Creature, cast, environment and effects are all built in 3D.

An all-CG children’s spot leans on character animation and environment work in equal measure. The mascot has to move with the weight and bounce that its young audience already recognises, while staying readable at broadcast size and in a fraction of a second. Staging the story underwater adds another layer: buoyant timing, drag on hair and fins, streams of bubbles simulated shot by shot, shafts of light and caustics rippling across the sand. The wreck itself is set-building in CG — geometry, coral dressing, scattered debris — lit so the scene feels deep without ever going murky, and everything is composited and graded to hold together as one place. Character animation and CG environments like these sit at the centre of what Terminal FX does for advertising.