Alice Looks Through Plenty's Looking Glass

Celebrating 150 years since Lewis Carroll first looked through the looking glass, Plenty creative director Pablo Alfieri and animation director Mariano Fairas were chuffed to take part in a promotional spot for Good Books charity.

Here, they talk to shots about updating the characters to be contemporary, surprising viewers and surpassing expectations.

What was the brief you received from the client for the campaign?

PA: The nice and challenging thing about Good Books was that String Theory gave us the script with only one comment: "Do whatever you want. Surprise us!"

It's every animators dream to hear those words, but at the same time, it means starting with a completely blank page. They sent us a literary script like a play - it was very concise, but without any direction or detail about how the story would be told.

What was the inspiration behind the idea?

MF: The idea came from String Theory. They wrote Alice’s Mad Hatter’s Tea Party scene with a twist in the story - the characters would eat books and the hatter would be a very good reader! 

How did you adapt the tale of Alice to incorporate its 150^th anniversary and the Good Books story into the spot?

MF: Honestly, at the beginning we didn’t think about the anniversary. The first thing we thought was "OMG! There are so many representations of Alice in films and books!” 

The twist in the story allowed us to reinterpret and think how different Alice would be in 2015, 150 years later... She had to be different, a bit edgier, more modern - with tattoos and a funky dress... Character designers Elda Broglio and Claudio Iriarte created our Alice with all this in mind. And it was only some weeks later that we realized we were creating a Lolita-like Alice, which excited us even more! 

PA: By starting the spot at a sweet and magical tea party, the world slowly becomes increasingly crazy with the clocks sounding on an infinite loop. This confuses both the viewer and Alice.

We used inserts with different aesthetics to suggest Alice's hallucinations and represent these trippy moments.

Tell us a bit more about creating each of the characters. How important was it for the characters to remain loyal to their traditional representations?

PA: It’s definitely something that we wanted to do with respect to the original. Our idea was to keep some details and aspects of each character but insert little twists to make them more contemporary. We tried to get the balance right by using the well-known features and adding in some new designs.

MF: For the personalities, we created a Hare that eats animals, a Rabbit who rides a monocycle, a sexy Chesire Cat and a fat Rose that's allergic to herself.

The most complicated character is the Mad Hatter. He is elegant, skinny and well educated, while also acting as the Hare’s accomplice. But we see a darker side to him when he traps the doormouse under a cup, and later appears stingy as he doesn't understand the charitable purpose of Good Books - all things that contribute to his psychotic breakdown.

What were the challenges involved with creating the campaign?

PA: The biggest challenge was to create something new and keep the animation fresh. We have been involved in a lot of character animated projects over the last three years but never produced to this high quality before.

MF: We’ve never done something so complex and so long. The scale of the project was a huge challenge, but now we know we can do it, working on something of this length is no longer daunting for us.

And the rewards? 

PA: First of all, it’s always a good feeling when you do something for charity. And then there’s the joy of finishing and presenting it. Jelly organised an awesome launch party for us where we got some great feedback from String Theory. Liquid Studios later improved the final piece with their amazing sound design.

Being part of a project that promotes reading is very important nowadays. We've continued to receive positive reactions from our friends and other agencies, as well as many congratulations for our work!

Finally, we're proud to be the third studio to create a Good Books advert, following the success of Buck and The Mill who created Metamorphosis and Havana Heat (below) respectively.

How important is creativity for Good Books and its target audience and do you think your ad succeeds in getting that across?

MF: They are selling books by visually telling well-known stories with creative twists that surprise the viewer. It creates a complicity with an audience who allow the little changes to happen.

Viewers like to be surprised and they like seeing things from a different point of view. We think Plenty did a great job of creating a different, rockier Alice and a cannibalistic Hare.

Good Books creates an annual film to promote the organisation. Does Good Books’ goals resonate with Plenty and how did you get on board?

MF: String Theory's executive creative director Jeremy Taine said that he chose Plenty because as a Latin American design studio, we produce strong characters and see things differently - which for us, is an huge complement! We use a vibrant and colourful style, combining energetic animation and art direction. So, with the strength of the script, we knew it deserved our full attention.

PA: It was a big surprise that they chose us to do the third script, because the previous ones were made by two of our favourite industry directors. We were really grateful that Good Books and String Theory considered us to be at the same level as those guys as we really look up to them.

After more than a year of working relentlessly in our free time, overcoming huge challenges and striving to be the best, we are now prepared for our next challenge, whatever that may be.

And look out for a profile of Plenty in the Argentina country feature in the next issue, 160.