https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I2j2-DqcPfM
A Depressed T-Rex and Audi… a parodic, strangely heartwarming ad about a tyrannosaurus rex with issues and how Audi helps it out. Because car ads have to do something weird to stand out from the pack nowadays. Via Adweek:
This unexpected heartbreaker of an ad goes on to explore the depths of T-Rex’s debilitating depression. He stares dejectedly out the window and spends all his time in bed. Sports don’t help, and basic homemaking is just too difficult. His pillows are covered in deep slashes, like the shredded portrait of the bereft prince in Disney’s Beauty and the Beast.
Then he discovers something that changes the game. “Magic is the feeling I had. It was absolute magic. It completed me … and I really got that sense of, I’m back.”
This marks the debut ad for Audi’s Piloted Driving feature. Created by Razorfish, it was directed by Stephan Wever of Stink, with Germany-based Sehsucht managing VFX.
“The biggest challenge was to make the dinosaur look depressed,” explains VFX head Florian Zachau of Sehsucht. “A T-Rex is a rather stiff character, and there is not a lot of variety on expression and gestures the animators could use in order to bring out the sadness. The interview scene in particular was not easy. There is a very thin line between making it look natural rather than awkward.”