How Sainsbury's created the biggest, friendliest Christmas ad of the year

As with all literary classics, readers of Roald Dahl's novel The BFG can't help but conjure up an endearing image of the titular titan.

Described in the book as having a "face with a look of both wisdom and kindness", "ears, so long and large they were almost as big as the wheels of a truck", and "feet, sticking out from under a cloak, covered with enormous sandals", the indelible image, aided by Quentin Blake's illustrations, is firmly cemented in the minds of most British children.

It's impressive, therefore, that New Commercial Arts and Sainsbury's, alongside Rogue and Electic Theatre Collective, chose not only to bring our hero to life, but to do it in the most-watched period in UK advertising of the year - the hallowed Christmas commercial.

Here, we speak to Dan Bailey and Brad Woolf, Creative Directors, New Commercial Arts; Sam Brown, Director, Rogue Films; and Michael ‘Chappers’ Chapman, VFX Creative Director, Electric Theatre Collective; about the development, the shoot and how they made a 24-foot icon utterly adorable.

How did you connect with The BFG, and what insight led you there?

Dan Bailey and Brad Woolf, New Commercial Arts: The BFG was integral to the idea as he seemed like the perfect fit, the Big Friendly Giant and the Big Friendly Grocer.

He brings a lovely mix of both magic and nostalgia, spanning generations of families

When did you first get involved in the BFG project, and what was it about the work that got you excited?

Sam Brown, Rogue Films: We got a call in May about bringing a beloved literary character to life.

When I found out it was the BFG I was unbelievably excited, but obviously couldn’t tell anyone about it.

What were the initial stages of development, and what was essential to get right from the start?

DB & BW: Making sure the story gave both Sainsbury’s and The BFG suitable roles. But once we settled on The BFG being motivated to seek out a better Christmas after another year of snozzcumbers, we knew that Sainsbury’s were the perfect people to help.

As you can imagine, the Gobblefunk dictionary is a complex one!

SB: I just really wanted to know what he looked like. To have something I could point to in my first conversation with Brad and Dan and say “This is our BFG”. It could have horribly backfired, of course, but they happened to love him. The first drawing I did is pretty is much who you’re seeing on screen.

How involved was the Roald Dahl Story Company, and did they have elements that were essential or off-limits?

DB & BW: The Roald Dahl Story Company were brilliant at helping us bring the BFG to life and were involved in the process throughout; attending the shoot and being on hand for any questions throughout creative development and the detail of production. 

The nuances of his language were extremely important to get right, and as you can imagine, the Gobblefunk dictionary is a complex one! They also made sure we got his scale absolutely right (he’s 24 ft).

How did you approach the look of the BFG? Did you take influence from past iterations or go right back to the source?

DB & BW: Right back to the source. The vision was based on the written story and brought to life in beautiful drawings right from the start by our director Sam Brown.

Michael ‘Chappers’ Chapman, Electric Theatre Collective: Everyone knows the BFG. Many of us have fond childhood memories surrounding one of Dahl’s most beloved characters. But nobody knows him quite like this. 

Rather than taking inspiration from Quentin Blake’s original 2D Illustrations, or Spielberg’s 3D recreation, we wanted to bring a fresh perspective, going back to the source text and proposing a hand-crafted, stop-motion puppet aesthetic. 

Big-eared, endearing and friendlier than ever, our 24ft CG giant was embraced by all parties from the treatment stage and brought to life along the way.

Why did you choose the stop-motion aesthetic, and were other techniques considered? How did this influence your approach and collaboration?

DB & BW: We always wanted The BFG to feel familiar and tactile. 

Combining some elements of stop motion with the expertise of ETC gave him the homespun charm we were aiming for.

SB: My hunch was that he needed to feel handmade. The hope being that if he was made with love, he’d be lovable. 

If he was made with love, he’d be lovable. 

We obviously couldn’t compete with either Quentin Blake’s original drawings or Steven Spielberg’s big budget wizardry, so we started thinking about stop-frame animation as a way of making him our own.

MCC: A stop-motion aesthetic was key from the start, but we had a lot of conversations about exactly how we were going to integrate a stop-motion, CG character into a live-action world - all the while interacting with talent. During the design process, we collaborated with puppetry legend Andy Gent, who made a 2ft iteration of a BFG model. This formed our base reference for nuances of fabric and textures, and the puppet was also used to create a stop-motion test to help establish how he should move in CG. 

In this way, we were able to establish the sweet spot between hand-made craft and digital motion, blending frame rates accordingly depending on the BFG’s movements. 

Depending on the action in each shot, we alternated animating on every first/second/third/fourth frame to create the right stop-motion feel, all the while ensuring the lip sync landed authentically.

How was the character of Sophie cast? Why was a genuine Sainsbury’s employee chosen over traditional casting?

SB: It’s a tradition of Sainsbury’s to use their staff in their advertising. I was skeptical about subjecting someone with no experience to such an elaborate shoot. But it was a big reminder to me that sometimes character is more important than technical ability. I ended up loving our Sophie.

What were some of the biggest challenges during the shoot, and how did you overcome them?

DB & BW: The great British weather….we shot part of the ad in Cumbria in August and had to contend with gale force winds and flooding. Not ideal conditions for flying a drone!

SB: Combining stop motion with live action is tricky, especially with the massive scaling involved with the BFG. Couple that with the fact that the in-store worker who played Sophie and Geoffrey (who voiced the BFG) were never in the same place at same time, and that the BFG didn’t exist at all, and things can get a bit confusing. 

It forced us into keeping everything very simple, which helped set the look and tone of the film. The limitations were helpful.

Combining stop motion with live action is tricky, especially with the massive scaling involved with the BFG.

MCC: The biggest challenges for us were perfecting the timing of the stop-frame animation and also seamlessly integrating the BFG into scenes with the Sainsbury’s real-life employee, who played Sophie. 

Alongside great comms with NCA, we also had a tight-knit group of CG and 2D artists on this, which made feedback and collaboration a lot more streamlined.

How much did you collaborate with ETC to get the animation elements incorporated from the start, and how did this impact your working style?

SB: We started with Andy Gent and his amazing team making our BFG for real as a 2ft tall, fully-articulating puppet. We used this to create short stop-frame animations of key sequences that we could use as reference for ETC’s CG animators. 

It was important to all of us to start with this, so everything felt grounded in something tactile and organic.

There’s an immediate likeability and humanity in the character’s appearance. Is that something consciously crafted or are you all so good it flows into the model, regardless? 

MCC: This is something we were all massively mindful of from the outset. That he needed to be, above all: friendly. Giants are often thought of in sinister terms, so we had to be really careful in ascertaining which features to enhance to aid that endearing quality. Big eyes can look cutesy on small, fluffy characters, but on a 24ft giant, less so! 

Giants are often thought of in sinister terms, so we had to be really careful in ascertaining which features to enhance to aid that endearing quality.

Sam sketched some early concepts of overall proportions and aesthetics, and we constantly refined things when reimagining these in CG to nail that warm presence. Even things as subtle as lighting made a massive difference to how you perceive him.