The commercial tells the story of a friendship between a hyena named Hattie, who is bullied by her pack for not knowing how to laugh, and an antisocial zookeeper -Carl- who doesn't want to laugh at all. Their passion for content makes Carl and Hattie end up sharing a curious friendship that will lead them to escape from the zoo and regain hope and more importantly, their smile. An unexpected Christmas tale condensed in two minutes for Prime Video, a brand specialized in storytelling.

Hyenas are usually portrayed as savage animals, especially thanks to international classic films like The Lion King. We had to turn that around through the storytelling, different gags in the film, and our main character’s evolution.

Another challenge was that the campaign was aired in 7 different countries with very different languages so we had to develop a story that would resonate across every culture. We wrote a script with no dialogue and with relatable characters who could make anyone, anywhere, smile.

An Unlikely Friendship was Prime Video first Christmas ad in Europe; broadcasted in 7 countries: Spain, UK, France, Ireland, Germany, Austria, and the Netherlands, so the content displayed on the screens throughout the commercial changed for each one of the markets.

As with every project that involves creatures, discovering the character of Hattie was the forefront of the VFX team minds throughout the production. The challenge was to find the balance between a photoreal hyena and a likeable, loveable character.

The animation of Hattie was key to her character. The team studied all forms of animation for reference, from realistic live-action hyena videos to more stylised 2D animation for the bigger performance moments.

The bar is set incredibly high for CG animals in commercials, but working with an alpha Houdini version of the muscle and skin system allowed us to simulate the muscles, skin, and fur in more than 35 shots adding to the realism of Hattie. Subtle things probably get missed on the first watch, but a custom rendering procedural was written to be able to render millions of hair directly out of Houdini.