WE LIKE TO MOVE IT MOVE IT

My McDonalds / Madagascar 2 commercial was televised this past weekend!!! I thought it was just going to be on Nickelodeon but I guess it's on Cartoon Network, too? SWEET.
Check it out!

I did all the 3D elements - the vines in the opening shot, the droplets that go flying out in each scene, the strings in the 'Rock It' shot, and, the plants in the 'Plant It' shot. The idea I had for the plants and some of the vines was 'Tim Burton goes African' so when I first started, some things were super stop-motiony:

but it didn't mesh well with the real people, so the animation became smoother.
Because of the constraints of TV advertising (sigh) a lot of shots get sped up and/or cut down from the intial renders, and I think 'Plant It' got kind of shafted in the advert, so here is the original render:

my favorite thing about it is the leaf that uncurls at the bottom :D
I should note that the 2D half of the 2D / 3D dynamic duo, Jay Kee, did the 'plant it' words in that clip, as well as all the sweet graphic work in the spot.

There are a couple other things from this spot that I want to post, but it's getting pretty video-heavy so I'll post a follow-up soonish.