Cinematic pre-visualisation for Pure Leaf Iced Tea

Independent Advertising Agency Fabula were developing their creative concept for the launch of Unilever-owned brand, Pure Leaf Iced Tea in the Netherlands. Ultimately, they hoped to make a live action commercial that would capture the atmospheric journey of tea leaves and natural flavourings to bottle. Before they could embark on an expensive shoot, they needed to present their vision to a qualitative research group.

The challenge would be to create a test commercial that would convey the story to the test audience in a cinematic way. Our imaging and animation experts recognised that illustrated animatics couldn’t quite capture the scale of the client’s vision, so we recommended a high-quality CGI animatic incorporating 3D camera moves and dramatic weather effects.

Our CGI team set to work building lemon groves, spectacular rain storms, vast tea plantations and sprouting tea leaves. Meanwhile, our language and culture team provided account-managed localisation services including the translation and sense-checking of the script as well as the casting, direction and in-market recording of a Dutch voice-over artist. Linking in with a London-based audio facility, we helped our agency clients attend the recording virtually and be physically present for the audio postproduction and mix.

The resulting animatic allows CG imagery to take the viewer on a journey back to nature, almost feeling the rain and thunder as they zoom through the landscape to the tender tea leaves and back to the refreshing product.