Say Cheese

Chester the Cheetah sneaks through a Cheetos factory and hangs out with a human production crew during a commercial by BBDO New York for Frito Lay. The spot blends live action with animation throughout 21 scenes--a large number for a 30-second ad. How producers at San Francisco-based Jon Francis Films and animators at Burbank-based Renegade Animation combined these elements:

1. Advertisers wanted the ad to show that Chester was the star of the Cheetos commercials, not just an element in them, said Darrell Van Citters, animation director at Renegade. Producers decided to have Chester step out of the commercial onto a sound stage. To start, animators drew Chester sneaking into the Cheetos factory. They did a drawing for every second of movement, Van Citters said.

2. Once in the factory, Chester jumps off a platform, stopping in mid-air in front of his production crew. For the scenes that blended live action and animation, designers first drew a storyboard of how the scene would look with both elements, said director Jon Francis. Then actors practiced the scene using a human stand-in for Chester.

3. To make sure the actors’ movements matched what Chester was doing, a pencil outline of the animated scene was placed on top of the live-action scenes as they were filmed. Designers could watch this outline on a monitor to determine if the actors were in the right place. The final take was then filmed against a blue screen so the animation could be added in the background. To add Chester to the live-action scenes, animators blew up each scene, placed a