Their brief requireda series of short films using real objects and familiar Australian summer experiences, reinterpreting their purpose to give them new qualities and personality through animation and surprising new roles. 

The first piece titled ‘Celebration’ went on air on 7 December, presenting a fantasy conga line of dancing party shoes. The second called ‘Beach’ features summer fruit frolicking on the beach and the third, ‘Sausage Party’, visits sausages hosting a BBQ where tongs and salad forks improvise a cricket match.

Stop Motion Magic
Sixty40 Director Mark Simpson says the magic of stop motion comes from painstaking, time-consuming effort, but finds the digital age has come to the aid of the stop motion artist. Digital cameras and software such as Stop Motion Pro, which they used, can save lots of time and allows on-the-fly previewing and monitoring that stop motion artists have lacked.
After working for a couple of weeks on the scripts, preproduction began in November last year. But adjustments to the plan were ongoing – 2D animation can be very precise, while stop motion relies on real objects cooperating with animators.
Storyboarding and previs was extensive because, new technology aside, it’s still important to get the action right in-camera. The interim stages are very limited and don’t support a lot of checking and tweaking as 2D and 3D applications do. Sixty40 created detailed animatics with Storyboard Pro. Although they did have to use a minimal amount of compositing in the end, only a few CG replacements were made when a couple of shots hadn’t worked out and couldn’t be recreated.

Dramatic Fruits
They shot their stills with a Canon 4D camera, first connecting the camera to a computer equipped with Stop Motion Pro. The images are then captured through the software, which processes them into a sequence that can be monitored before proceeding.
Underwater scenes in ‘Beach’ were done in-camera by shooting through glass plates. Some colour grading and lens flares were applied afterwards, but all action is real. Instead of using a particle simulation, for example, the bubbles are made of real sweets that bob around and rise to the surface through stop motion, shot separately and composited in.
Sheer, gossamer organza fabric was used to suggest the surface of the water from above and below, especially useful for showing a rippled effect when they reeled the cloth out on a spindle as the tide runs out to sea toward the sunset. A pair of rambutans caused endless dramas. To begin with, the hairy little red fruits were out of season when the shoot was scheduled. By calling nearly every importer in Australia, they managed to score one slightly wilted boxful. After finishing the shoot and celebrating by consuming the fruit, they discovered a re-shoot was required. They managed to resurrect a few of the rambutans they had discarded earlier, and got the shots they needed.

Dual Role
The spots are devoid of people. Instead, the effort was put into selecting familiar, associated objects to play a dual role in the story for each spot. For example, the sweets used for bubbles were Tic Tac and Lifesaver mints to invoke a ‘refreshing’ quality. Summer fruits were chosen as the beach goers, slowly ripening in the sun, played by a sliced orange. Beach towels were party serviettes, and the anemones in the surf were made of cocktail straws.
In ‘Celebration’, party shoes boogie, and coffee pots and expresso makers chatter to each other. A gift ribbon unrolls to serve as the fuse igniting the popping champagne bottles that emit fireworks composed, appropriately, of champagne corks, pipe cleaners,  party poppers, ribbons, hair bands and confetti. A party popper explodes too soon with enthusiasm while his popper friend grows concerned and helps him stand up.
Warm and cool temperature variations, such as going from the sand to underwater, were suggested with lighting and tuned later in the colour grade, done in After Effects. The stills were shot at 3K, sufficient resolution to allow dynamic zooming and panning in post. In idents 1 and 2, no green screen was used. Anything that was shot separately to comp in later was recorded on set. The stills were transferred to QuickTime files for delivery, in letterbox format. 

Authenticity
Using so many real props required extensive cleanup and wire removable, but Mark prefers the authenticity and believes the visual puns come across more clearly with real objects. Liquids were handled in various ways. “The drinks are made of real liquids but the ice is CG - stop motion with ice is totally crazy!” he said. “The splashes in the water are more mints combined with little plastic toy gems.”
‘Sausage Party’ alludes to masculine barbecue culture, opening with a fly's eye view as it travels over the picnic table. The kaleidoscope effect of a fly’s composite eye was created in post after taking multiple frames while moving the camera over the table, then duplicating and treating it in After Effects.
The foam pouring from the stubbies is tissue paper and even the flames are sequences of different layers of multi-coloured paper napkin replaced under and between the barbecue holes. For the big flaring moment, these bits of napkin are supported by wire which is later removed in post. The ever-present little fly, composed of two fluttering fliptabs was animated on a wire on green screen and comped in. Watch the idents here. www.sixty40.com