Marks and Spencer Food- Christmas 2024

Quintessentially British Retailer, Marks and Spencer returns to The Mill for the 4th year of Fairy magic. Voiced by iconic…
Marks and Spencer Food- Christmas 2024
Case Study

Quintessentially British Retailer, Marks and Spencer returns to The Mill for the 4th year of Fairy magic. Voiced by iconic actress/comedienne, Dawn French, our festive Fairy character is back, alongside Dawn, in the flesh!

Similarly to previous years, the high quality retailer is releasing a six-part festive series, starting with a mood boosting hero film. The 90 second M&S Food commercial focuses on an unenthused Dawn, exhausted by the chaos of Christmas. The energy quickly changes when Dawn's mini-me appears to save the day, with an M&S festive feast, copious drinks, fabulous friends and a wonderful party look. It is heartwarming, humorous and certainly relatable.

The Mill is known for an ability to create lasting, memorable brand characters, emphasised by the ad's impressive System1 score of 5.9. System1 is The Creative Effectiveness Platform that quickly harnesses the power of emotion to drive profitable growth for the world's leading brands. This is the second year, consecutively, that we have seen such a high score from our work on the M&S Food Christmas campaign, highlighting the value of creating a brand character viewers really love.

Our talented The Mill team worked wonders, again. Led by Creative Director Andy Steele, we teamed up with Director MJ Delaney and Production Company, Merman, to lift Christmas spirits to new heights. Andy said, "the privilege to work with Dawn on set is a real highlight of my career, her ability to turn a scene on a sixpence with improvisation was magical. MJ and Dawn had a fantastic understanding of each other, which allowed each scene to flow with some truly funny moments.”

The impressive work did not stop on shoot. Our VFX team waved their magic wands in post to really bring the commercial to life. VFX Supervisors Mike Little and Adrian Monroy Diaz were leading the force, telling us, "it was great to have Dawn for Fairy to react to. We wanted to make the most of their similarities and distinctions, helping to keep the humour going in shots where Fairy is the focus. Fairy's magic was used in some new and interesting ways this year, particularly in interactions with Dawn, something we explored at length to keep consistency with other magic shots, which was vital.”

The second helping of this Christmas food series is 'Christmas Gifts'. Fairy focuses on the edible gifts of the season.

Mouth watering work from The Mill on the third film, 'Party Food'.

Credits
Credits

Client: M&S
Head of Creative: Rich Robinson
Head of Marketing: Robbie Black
Head of Production: Kate Taylor
Advertising Lead: Katie Hooper
Senior Producer: Charlotte Jude
Media Lead: Rachel Marsden
Creative: Chloë Gray
Advertising Managers: Vhairi Motherwell, David Abiona
Assistant Media Manager: Alina McCrone
Production Assistant: Lucinda Knoyles-Hughes.

Live Action Production: Merman
Director: Mj Delaney
Managing Director / Exeuctive Producer: Siobhan Murphy
Producer: Lucy Tate
Production Manager: Fatima Zaman
Production Assistant: Jess Glaus, Hannah Lockwood
1st Assistant Director: Ben Glickman
2nd Assistant Director: Spencer Wilson
3rd Assistant Director: Kitty Rajakulasingham
Director Of Photography: Tat Radcliffe
Dit: Lilly Palmer
Production Designer: James Hatt
Art Director: Dalia Gellert
Set Decorator: Natasha Reynell
Assistant Prop Buyer: Ezra Piers
Vfx Supervisor: Andy Steele, Adrian Monroy Diaz
SFX (Machine Shop: Antonio Cardoso, George Wills
Costume Designer: Sam Ranger
Makeup: Eve Coles

Food Production: Bite Collective
Director: Gus Filgate
Bite EP: Alex Katz & Dom Seymour
Bite Pm: Kelly Hewitt
Food Stylist: Elaine Ngan
Food Assistant: Michaella Collins
Food Assistant: Francesca Paling
Food Set Decorator: Penny Markham
Casting Director: Lesley Beastall

Live Action Edit: @work Editorial
Editor: Rebecca Luff
Assistant editor: Louis Caldwell
Edit producer: Frankie Elster

Food Edit: Marshall Street
Editor: John Mayes

Sound studio: Little Things
Voice Recordings, Sound Design and Mix: James Clark
Audio Producer: Chris Wrigglesworth |

Music Company: Wake the Town
Composer: Charlie Smith
Music Supervisor: Dominic Bastyra

Post Production: The Mill
Creative Director: Andy Steele
Executive Producer: Mireille Antoine
Senior Producer: Chris Preston-Barnes
Colour: Philip Hambi
Animation Lead: Chris Welsby
VFX Edit: Zoe Izzard
VFX Supervisors: Mike Little (CG), Vittorio Barabani (CG), Adrian Monroy Diaz (2D), Schalk Van Der Merwe (2D), Vanessa Duquesnay (2D)
DFX Supervisor (Bangalore): Mahesh M S
Project Lead (Bangalore): Vikas Soni
Associate Producer (Bangalore): Aisswarya J
Production Coordinator (Bangalore): Eldhose Joy
Animation Supervisor (Bangalore): Sukanta Chakraborty
Animation Lead (Bangalore): Srinivasa Rao Rella
Lighting Supervisor (Bangalore): Aritra Sarkar
Lighting Lead (Bangalore): Vishwajeet S N
Comp Supervisor (Bangalore): Nanda P V
DMP Supervisor (Bangalore): Gowri Velusamy D
Lead DMP (Bangalore): Sandipan Majumder
Comp Lead (Bangalore): Amresh Kumar & Ragesh Ramachandran
Animation Artists: George Rigby, Pamella Nabais, Ravi Panwar, Abhilash T K, Raman Bhatia, Jithin K, Amarnath Reddy E, Chinnaiya M, Devadathan K C
FX Artists: Emre Sumer, Dimitri Allonneau, Roman Vrbovsky
Lighting Artists: Katie Bates, Elia Goettlicher, Tatjana Ljubimtseva, Marc Greyvenstein, Luca Maccarelli, Ravi Kant Nirala, Stacie Fina Dsouza, Ravikanth Raju, Mohanta Maji
2D Artists: Mithun Alex, Leah Ayinde, Oliver Chenery, Polly Gwinnett, Vipin Tripathi, Davide Metti, Rushabh Ramesh Madalkar, Chandan Kamalakar Shete, Jayant Sharma, Bhaskar Reddy Kappeta, Ashish Kumar Verma, Karthikkeyan M D, Rajashekhar Nagappa Nadiminti, Haris V K, Narina Satya Vasavi Kumar, Aman Kumar Singh, Rakhahari Ghosh, Aashna Chawla
DMP: Mohan Rao, Srinath, Shanmugavel V, Jyothika S, Shanmugavel V

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