Greenpeace: Tesco’s Burning Secret

“Tesco’s Burning Secret” tells the story of Tesco’s connection to the forest fires that are being deliberately set across Brazil.

Chicken Fruit feel incredibly privileged to join the ranks of studios such as Aardman and Cartoon Saloon in working with Greenpeace to raise awareness of an important environmental issue.

More information on the fires in Brazil, and what you can do to support the campaign, can be found on the Greenpeace website.

Behind the Scenes

For this concept, we wanted to use a dashed line, similar to the one found in the Tesco logo, to create a visual link between the decisions made by Tesco executives and the products that end up on supermarket shelves.

Once Greenpeace had told us the details, we storyboarded several alternative ways of telling the story. Then, working closely with the Greenpeace team, we picked scenes that we felt presented the issue in the clearest way.

From these storyboards, we mocked up some style frames to give an idea of what the final animation would look like. Usually, we like to work with bright, fun colours, but we wanted this film to have a dark, desaturated palette to reflect the serious nature of the problem.

We also wanted to use “real” textures and objects to reflect the fact that this is a real thing that is happening right now in Brazil, not an abstract idea. So, we used a combination of print textures, photographs, paper cut-outs and 3D objects to create a patchwork style. The use of real textures also reflects our other work we’ve done for the Greenpeace UK online videos, which is often has a papercraft feel.

We also knew we wanted to portray moments of time captured in stillness, with the camera panning through, to reflect an unseen observer seeing a snapshot of a key moment in the timeline.

This style gave us the freedom to experiment a little: bigger elements, like forests, could be expressed through brush strokes; we played with scale and geography; and we built collage-style characters, cutting out elements from stock photographs and using them to build 3D models.

The building seen in the film is inspired by the Tesco Head Office, which is known as the Checkout Building. We built this from scratch in 3D, using references taken from Google Street View, then embedded this model into the shots by surrounding it with brush strokes and paint elements.

This anchoring in the visual style was very important to us for this project. We didn’t want to use any elements that were untouched by the collage feel – we avoided standard fades, glows or cuts as much as possible, and instead made a pack of animated brush transitions to use for these moments. (You can download those for free here, if you fancy.)

Halfway through the project, we received footage from Greenpeace that was filmed this year that shows the extent of the damage that is happening right now in Brazil. It was incredibly powerful, and reminded us how important this film is in the fight against environmental damage. Some shots are included at the end of the film.

For the audio, we worked with composer and sound designer Reeder, who scored an original piece and added SFX elements to the animation. They were incredible throughout the entire project, and we’re so pleased with the result. (And if you like beautiful four-part audio reflections on sunrises, we recommend listening to Reeder’s new EP “Affirmations” on their Bandcamp.)

To help make a difference, share the film and let Tesco hear your thoughts.