At Chipotle, ingredients are more than just food. They are at the center of everything. They are guests of honor, and at Chipotle, we treat them as such. That’s why we threw a festival in their honor. We used stop-motion animation to bring this festive celebration to life in a real and authentic way. After all, there’s no better way to celebrate our ingredients than by hosting a jousting tournament and puppet show for their entertainment. The use of animation allowed us to personify these ingredients as royalty and show the daily pampering and serving they receive.

This piece was made using stop motion animation while elements of CG were added to enhance the visual story. This film required 4,500 frames of animation, 11,000 labor hours and dozens of artists to handcraft our elaborate, grandiose sets. Timing, blocking and shooting with our ARC motion control camera crane through our elaborate sets proved to be a big production challenge and resulted in a nearly 30 day shoot to complete this film.