Like what you see?If you fancy a chat about what we do, give us a call on 01582 881144 or drop us an email hello@falloffthewall.com. We’d love to hear from you!
FOTW are no strangers to helping businesses create campaigns that make a real impact, which is
why they relished the task from MrQ – the no-nonsense online casino, slots and bingo site –
when they tasked them with developing a campaign that would launch their new brand.
The challenge was to create a concept that celebrates the new MrQ brand and educates
prospective customers about what MrQ offers. With initial ideas drawing on words such as ‘fun’,
‘entertaining’, ‘realistic’ and ‘honest’, FOTW soon realised that these would form the foundations of a
creative structure.
The final idea, a concept that highlights the “You Win Some, You Lose Some” no-nonsense nature of the brand, sees a charismatic brand ambassador moving through a themed space performing a series
of ‘small defeats’ and ‘little victories’ to comedically convey the nature of MrQ. Creating a sense
of genuine honesty amongst the viewers, the brand ambassador then breaks the fourth wall to state
that “it’s not about winning, but about playing for the fun of it”.
With a live-action shoot that featured a retro-pop aesthetic, FOTW – working closely with High Stakes
Films and the director duo That Jam – were able to capture the outstanding talent playing the “Mr Q”
character to bring the brand to life. Moving into post-production, the focus then turned to
creating a snappy and engaging series of commercials that presented all the information needed in a
comedic and light-hearted fashion. Finally, the VFX was added, and radio scripts recorded – and,
hey-presto, the ambitious vision came to life.
The result is a stunning TV, digital and radio campaign that grabs viewers’ attention, presents the
nature of MrQ and brings a smile to their faces.
MrQ – Savvas Fellas, Managing Director at MRQ
“The team at FOTW have guided us through the journey of producing a highly polished, perfectly on-
brand TV ad to elevate our brand presence. With incredibly tight timelines I couldn’t be happier with
the professionalism of the team, their attention to detail, demonstrative knowledge of compliance &
regulation, creative concepts and, of course, the end result.”FOTW – Robin Byrne, Co-founder
“At Fall off the Wall (FOTW) our mission is to help bring brands to life with ZING through our all
screen approach. So, when we were contacted by the team at MrQ we were super excited and
instantly admired their new brand and tone of voice. Creative thinking is everything we do across
direct and brand response advertising getting the very best value out of the assets, across all
screens. There is an art when it comes to making content disruptive and engaging, and we feel that
we have managed to bring through the personality of the brand in this TV launch.”FOTW – Marlon Griffin, Creative Director
“In our latest campaign for MrQ, we bring the mantra of ‘You Win Some, You Lose Some’ to life with a
very open and honest approach. With a no-nonsense comedic tone, we’ve developed a new
ambassador for the brand who invites players to experience MrQ for themselves, not for the big wins –
but for the fun of it! Working with great clients, High Stakes Films and directing duo That Jam,
together we’ve created work which we are all immensely proud of.”
About FOTW
FOTW is an independent creative production agency powered by creativity, CGI, and coffee. Our story began with two mates, who took their love of design and started their own studio in 2002. Fast forward 20 years and we’ve created ads and campaigns for huge clients, ranging from Sky, Samsung and Oddschecker, to iCandy and Kit & Kin, across all screens big and small – TV, Digital, Social, the lot!
About MrQ
Holding the title of EGR Slots Operator of the Year 2021, MrQ prides itself on removing the jargon
and allowing customers to focus on having fun. All winnings are paid in cash. Every slot game is
independently tested to provide a quality playing experience, while zero wagering requirements mean
customers get to keep every penny of their win, even if won on a free spin or bonus. This no-
nonsense approach is reflected in their latest campaign ‘You Win Some, You Lose Some’.
For more information please contact:
Robin Byrne – Co-founder/Director, FOTW
robin@falloffthewall.com
07810 333092
FOTW were creative partner to Sky Betting and Gaming (SBG), playing a key role in the internal creative direction of the Stelling Towers Super 6 TV adverts. With FOTW’s ability in story telling, production and filming (alongside Partners KODE), two polished and effective TV commercials featuring Jeff Stelling from previous SBG Super 6 adverts and Sky Sports Soccer Saturday were delivered.
What expertise did FOTW provide?
Partnering alongside SBG, FOTW built the initial creative into more expressive stories. Using carefully constructed storyboards the narrative was effectively brought to life, whilst ensuring the commercials produced still remained within the duration of 30 & 10 seconds, and most importantly, still spoke directly to the audience they were intending to drive a response from. Organising the production from start to finish, we held the reigns throughout. Crafting the edit in house along with all the post production requirements, FOTW also managed the grade and audio – constantly ensuring the level of polish matched SBG’s high expectations before delivering successfully to channel, keeping to the scheduled delivery date.
Most exciting aspect of the project?
FOTW found one of the most exciting aspects was being able to use a ‘fly on the wall’ documentary-type style of filming. The director (Sam Washington) captured the vision perfectly getting a very cheeky and humorous collection of clips that followed Jeff documenting his ‘loss of wealth’ since the last Super 6 giveaway. The art department pushed the boundaries by creating an array of elaborate gold items, including a set of golf clubs and trinkets to a mountain of presents – full to the rafters and complete with a roaring fire to best achieve that decadent feeling. This style really helped to re-create ‘The Office’ vibe used for inspiration, working wonderfully with actors’ grimaces and cheeky looks of despair at Jeff hiding his wealth.
What was the most challenging aspect of the project?
Definitely finding the right location! FOTW needed to find somewhere grand enough to pass as a mansion ‘fit’ for Jeff Stelling, but also suitable enough to host the logistics of filming whilst being believable in achieving the look of ‘riches to rags’ theme behind the creative storytelling. A country house with bundles of character, full of history and interesting quirks was settled on, beautifully fitting the brief. Having two x 30” and two x 10” amount of content to get filmed in one day was always going to be a lot to capture. To help, FOTW kept the photography in separate rooms that weren’t getting used for filming ensuring all content was captured within the tight schedule.
Finally, due to the nature of the filming, what was planned on paper when shot in situ sometimes didn’t quite give the results required. This resulted in a lot of ‘freestyle’ shooting but as ever, all parties quickly adapted to being ever responsive and flexible, ensuring all footage needed was captured, allowing the final edits to absolutely deliver the brief.
Like what you see?
If you fancy a chat about what we do, give us a call on 01582 881144 or drop us an email hello@falloffthewall.com. We’d love to hear from you!
Creative @ FOTW
A Reel Show off!
When it comes to showreels there’s definitely a tried and tested formula – a series of awesome work, quick cuts, and a ridiculously cool music track. A visually explosive collation to inspire and intrigue potential clients. But with 2021 being so far from a tried and tested formula, we figured we’d mix it up and create something a bit more ‘Fall off the Wall’.
Our very own Creative Director Marlon was at the helm of this year’s concept. When asked where the idea came from? he said…
“I thought it would be nice for us to do something a bit different this year. With us all having been in lockdown for so long, it just felt like a breath of fresh air to do something that would actually take place outside on the streets. We’re now all looking towards the summer and the easing of restrictions, so it seemed like a showreel that was culturally relevant and channelled positive energy was the right space to be in – A celebration of the brighter days on the horizon and being with friends again.
Our name is ‘Fall Off The Wall’, so as the idea developed, the coin dropped that using a ‘Wall’ of graffiti that was themed with our work could be a great way to drive the narrative, giving us justified in & out points to cut between full bleed content to showcase our work…and of course look cool to boot!”
This bold creative approach gave us the opportunity to pull on the different talents and skillsets of our team, as we combined live-action with typographic design & animation, illustration and compositing. This collaboration of format and execution has in itself created a truly unique and holistic showcase of what we can do.
The text within the scenes act as a visual narrative for the viewer with key words and statements selected to express who FOTW are, what we do and what we believe makes effective DRTV. It was also important for us to embody the feeling of what working with us is all about; a friendly and collaborative approach to client projects, which makes for a super constructive creative environment. The backing track reiterates this with its catchy beat, combined with the repetition of the lyrics ‘playing with my friends’. This is how we see our clients, and the fun journey we always take together to create great work.
I personally was excited to get involved with this one from an illustrative perspective with the graffiti visuals. I naturally lean towards pen and paper in my out of hours arty endeavours, but for this it was far more efficient and practical to work with 100% vector, updatable drawings, so it was a no-brainer to get on Adobe Illustrator. Plus, the range of digital brushes came in super handy for the more stylistic street-art strokes. I took the opening and closing frames from the edit sections and drew up the main component in a layered approach. You never know quite what the feedback will be, so it’s crucial that different aspects are easy to remove, scale or recolour. Here’s a few of the Illustrations that made the final cut.
Once the edit and illustrations were all signed off, it was then time for our Nuke Compositing wizard Jason to pull it all together! He composited all of the illustrations into the scenes and animated the text enabling our guy to seemingly dance in and around the titles. Hold on tight – it’s about to get a bit technical…I’ve thrown in some definitions if -like me- you find them useful!
The guys told me they used Nuke, as its node-based workflow is ideal for this type of job. Nuke is a digital compositing and visual effects software, and a node is basically a building block for the list of operations you want to be completed – like a to-do list for the visual assets.) Using Nuke meant they could quickly change the graffiti illustrations and title cards and set different in and out points for the separate shots that were selected.
Nuke also has a built-in 3D camera tracker, which simulates the filming journey. This was used to track the clips and replicate the camera moves, digitally. Then using 3D geometry, they placed the titles and graffiti into the scene, applying the various data with a bit of roto, to put the titles behind the talent. (Roto is short for Rotoscoping which is when you isolate an object from a video sequence.)
Essentially using Nuke meant the guys managed to get through twelve shots and roto in a matter of days. The speed and quality of Nuke was massively helpful with such a tight turn-a-round. It may be internal an internal project, but we still run a tight ship with a schedule and allocated days to each section of the process.
Our Senior Creative, Kieran added the final touches of SFX to the mix, to really bring the motion and animation aspects to life.
FOTW is all about working together, to deliver great creative work and having fun in the process. I’ve been here nearly four years and it’s unlike anywhere else I’ve worked – in a good way, so it’s only right we have a one-of-a-kind company showreel, to reflect our individuality. Let us know if you get that impression from our showreel in the comments below. We certainly had a great time working on it and each putting our unique mark on the final result!
FOTW 2021 SHOWREEL Credits:
Creative Director/Copywriter: Marlon Griffin
Lead Motion Designer: Mark Wingell
Producer: Charlotte Morgan
Illustration: Zoe Bishop
Compositing: Jason Mackay
Typography design: Chris Henley
Typography animation: Nick Bishop
Offline Editor: Dan Hemmington
SFX/Mix: Kieran Clarke
Ever wondered what goes into making a fully CG room?
Our Senior Nuke Artist and VFX supervisor, Jason shares his experience in creating a full CG environment and how his love for the craft helped to visualise the fantasy of a larger than life space.
What was the business challenge?
‘FOTW Anywhere’ came in full swing for this. We sent our Lead Creative to the Sky Betting and Gaming offices, who worked and brainstormed with the internal team to create a successful vehicle for the 2019 / 2020 Sky Vegas campaigns across TV, digital and print. We helped to develop the Vegas HQ concept to get it through numerous testing – ready to then take over the production process. The brief was to make sure we integrated the live action and CG aspects that come from Sky Vegas rather than shoehorning them together – which by housing the King in Vegas HQ worked perfectly!
What expertise did FOTW bring to the table?
FOTW were closely involved from the start, teaming up with SB&G to nail the creative for a coherent theme running through three campaigns. FOTW was then enlisted to produce the five day three campaign shoot, which was the largest one the client has undertaken. The project involved large scale set builds, VFX supervision, full green screen studio, moving cameras and a large cast of talent.
What was the most fun and the biggest challenge?
The really fun stuff involved match moving all of the extras, building multiple takes of multiple extras into one smooth camera move. We needed to create a carefully layered, believable scene that looked real, and part of this involved adding in volumetric lighting effects. We also shot everything with an old 1960’s anamorphic lens – adding in the same lens characteristics onto our 3D and composite to really get it to sit perfectly within the scene.
The most challenging part of the project was definitely how to best manage the anamorphic footage. The director had decided he wanted to film with an anamorphic lens to give the advert a much wider letterbox look. The amount of warp it adds into the shot is truly astonishing – this obviously complicated the tracking and camera matching we had to do too.
And the workflow?
We used Nuke for all the compositing and Cinema4d for all the 3D elements. We had to match move all the live action shots to ensure we had a perfect digital representation of the camera move and then place that into our 3D environment. Nuke’s 3D system was also utilised to build the set extension for a number of the live action shots.
Like what you see?
If you fancy a chat about what we do, give us a call on 01582 881144 or drop us an email hello@falloffthewall.com. We’d love to hear from you!
The creative team at FOTW set to work on creating an emotionally engaging animation to help raise awareness for Anti-Bullying week and incentivise others to promote change.
The Insight
Whether it’s verbal, physical, online or in-person, bullying has a significant impact on a child’s life and well into adulthood. Research shows that 80% of children don’t stand up to the bullying of others, as they worry about being targeted themselves.
The research demonstrates that more support and encouragement is needed amongst children andpeer groups alike to stand up for others and make small, simple changes to break the silence.
The Strategy
We wanted to create a simple animation that would instil empathy in the viewer as they watch the situation unfolding. The creative needed to engage and incentivise the viewer to make a change and support the cause by following the #antibullyingweek campaign online. It needed to encourage small changes to take place in schools and businesses to stamp out bullying and stand up for their peers.
The Big Idea
The idea focused on playing with perspectives. While we naturally assume that the narrative is directed towards the bully – alluding to ‘being there’ during every physical or emotional attack – we soon realise that the focus is actually on the individuals who are aware of what’s happening but choose not to speak up. The narrative twist is used to spark surprise within the viewer and make the animation all the more memorable.
Working as a collective
A collective responsibility is what is needed to prevent bullying from becoming an isolated problem. It’s happening in our playgrounds, in our classrooms, on journeys to and from school, and online. From educators, parents, and young people themselves, to government, tech companies, influencers and the media: no one group has the answer. As an agency we promoted our animation across social media, using the relevant hashtags to spread the message and encourage engagement. The video received the most shares and click-throughs across LinkedIn out of all the channels it was promoted on, and we feel our idea has longevity for us to keep sharing the message and promoting change.
The ‘Change Starts with Us’ project used findings and research from the campaign to put together key recommendations for stamping out bullying – you can read the report here.
Like what you see? If you fancy a chat about what we do, give us a call on 01582 881144 or drop us an email hello@falloffthewall.com. We’d love to hear from you!
]]>What motivated you to create this?
I was working on a new commercial for Sky Sports and we were in the RND stage, we knew we would be using an F1 car somehow and the idea was that it would drive across the screen and into a glass tile. There were two executions that I was trying out, the first was to use real footage of a car and the second was to create a fully CG car.
The second interested me the most because I could really get up close and create some powerful shots. Unfortunately due to time we had to use the real footage. However I knew how much potential the fully cg car had and I had all these ideas for shots in my head that I really wanted to make, so it became my next passion project.
Where did you draw inspiration from?
I have always admired F1 and the way it has been captured on camera. In recent years there have been two amazing films that evoke the power and beauty of these highly competitive races. First there was Senna and then Drive to Survive on Netflix. Drive to Survive closely follows the Red Bull team so I knew my piece had to feature that car, the livery just looks awesome, the dark colours and that image of the bull charging across the body. I wanted to portray the raw energy these machines have and often after a big win drivers will perform doughnuts and have huge burnouts on the track, so I knew that was what I needed to do in CG. I could see in my head dramatic lighting and slow motion, it felt like it could be visually quite strong.
What was the most challenging aspect of the project?
Without a doubt, trying to make a CG burnout convincing. There are a few examples of this type of CG burnout out there, although they don’t use an F1 car, and I felt I needed to at least get close to those in terms of looking as realistic as possible. Of course, there is always room for improvement in motion design. The other challenges I faced were from a technical perspective, the smoke took a long time to make in the PC. Smoke for one wheel for one shot took 22 hours to simulate, and then a further two days to render. Then after that I needed to render the car separately. So it took a long time to make all the elements I needed for one shot and I have 14 shots in the piece.
And the software?
Cinema 4d and turbulence FD for the smoke. X-particles for the debris. Redshift for rendering. After effects for compositing.
Like what you see?
If you fancy a chat about what we do drop us a line, or alternative give us a call on 01582 881144 or drop us an email hello@falloffthewall.com. We’d love to hear from you!
]]>