Diarmid Harrison Murray: Making Monty the Penguin

MPC London - winner of last night's shots Award for Post Production Company of the Year, if you're interested - is the company behind the creation of one of this year's most popular Christmas characters; John Lewis's Monty the Penguin.

Below, VFX supervisor on the commercial, Diarmid Harrison Murray [above], lets us into some behind-the-scenes secrets of the project and reveals how Monty was brough to life.

When did you start working on this commercial and what was the brief you were given?

I started working on the project mid-July. The brief was to create a completely photorealistic CG penguin that would behave in a naturalistic way but also deliver an engaging emotional performance.

There was some initial discussion as to whether to cast Monty as a Gentoo penguin, but the Adelie quickly emerged as the favourite for both adam&eveDDB and Dougal Wilson.

Where did you start in the design process of Monty?

With a fantastical creature we would normally start with concept art, but in this case we started by looking at wildlife footage. From a technical design standpoint we have to decide what we need to build into the penguin. We need to consider what his body should look like underneath his feathers, and if we need to simulate his muscles or fat layers. At the same time we need to consider how he needs to move and what sort of internal skeleton and rig we will need to create our animation.

Where did you get your inspiration for the creation of Monty?

Archive wildlife footage and photography of the Adelie. Dougal Wilson is meticulous is his research and gathered a great library of material that he shared with us at MPC. We created a shortlist of clips and images that exemplified the characteristics we were after.

We came to realise that there isn't a great deal of variation between individual Adelies but rather an individual Adelie can dramatically change how he looks moment to moment. This is what makes them such expressive creatures. Sometimes they are squat and chubby and fluffy with their neck totally hidden inside hunched shoulders, the next minute they are slick, fast and athletic.

A penguin doesn’t have a particularly expressive face; how much of a challenge was that?

Very true. This was a challenge particularly as our brief was to stick to naturalistic Adelie behaviour. We built some animation control into the eyes that meant we could push things a little beyond reality if it was needed and on a handful of occasions we did make use of this extra expressiveness.

We played around with Monty quite a bit and found that he could express emotion through his whole body and posture too. Small changes to his head and neck position made a real difference. Additionally we had control over his feathers - we found just by lifting or flatten his feathers we could change his perceived mood.

Were you on set for the shoot and, if so, how important is being on set for a VFX-heavy job like this?

I jumped back and forth a bit between the shoot and the team back at MPC, but we always had one of our VFX supervisors on set. It is absolutely vital for a job like this. There is a wealth of information and data that we need to collect for the work later. Without the lighting references and images we capture it would be much harder to realistically integrate Monty into the shot footage.

Additionally, its important to be there to make sure all the different plates get shot for the 2D work later, help answer the inevitable VFX-related questions and help take advantage any creative opportunities that arise on the day.

Is there any of Monty in the spot that isn’t CGI?

No. He is fully CG throughout the spot.

Fur used to be cited as a very difficult thing for CG to make look real but it looks like those issues have now been resolved; would you agree?

Fur is still one of the harder challenges in CG. In the past fur needed to be treated a special case, often requiring simpler lighting, clever cheats and optimisations to get it through the renderer. What we are seeing now is that it can be treated just like any other object in the scene despite its obvious complexity and this has definitely helped increase the level of realism.

And what was the most difficult part of creating him?

Whilst not immediately obvious, penguins don't have fur, but rather loads of very small, fine feathers. We choose to replicate this using CG feathers rather than just fur. Even though you often can't make out the individual feathers on Monty, this really added to the realism of his lighting and shading, particularly as he moves and the feathers stack up onto of each other. It was however a lot harder than just using fur. To get the right look required producing an awful lot of intricate fine feathers!

Can you tell when you’re working on a commercial like this, how much of an impact it, and by extension, the character of Monty, will have?

It comes in waves really. When you first read the script or the treatment you get a feeling. I remember reading Dougal's treatment and feeling very excited about the potential of the spot. You then get lost a bit in the process of building Monty - seeing him in a half built state, until one day you hit the sweet spot and you see him working as a photorealistic creature.

At that point you feel the excitement and potential again. As the project nears completion it is really hard to tell how it looks objectively and how it will be received. You just have to trust your professional instincts that you are pushing it in the right direction.

What would you like for Christmas?

Fresh air and country walks and time away from my computer and all things technological...and an Omega watch if anyone is offering!