Evian's Skating Babies, Cooler Than Baby Cha-Cha

Cooler than Baby Cha-Cha of the late 1990's, the Skating Babies of Evian's viral advertisement have taken the internet by storm. According to CBSnews.com, these adorable babies have received more than six million hits in the world since the advertisement debuted. CBSnews.com also reports that this ad is quickly approaching the twenty-million plus hits mark, and that is extremely rare.

But, unlike Baby Cha-Cha, who danced his/her way into the hearts, televisions, and e-mails of the general population of the United States, the Evian Skating Babies are not purely CGI creations. Ludo Fealy of the Motion Picture Company, told CBSnews.com that, "that these babies could barely walk, let alone skate." He had the babies placed in front of green screens, captured their movement, then had his London crew transform these babies into skating maniacs.

Fealy accomplished the babies amazing moves by filming a professional skater performing the roller dance, and then "programmed a computer-generated baby's body to replicate them." But, the babies are not purely CGI. The film team put the individual heads of each baby atop of the CGI bodies. This technique has really made the babies look real. The improvements in graphic generations and the digitalization abilities that are now available really make Baby Cha-Cha look old school.

The website Vizworld.com states regarding the Skating Babies that, "MPC's team of animators used Autodesk Maya to create the baby skaters' bodies. To ensure the babies appear fully realistic, it was important to carefully match movements, paying special attention to interaction between the shoulders, neck and head. To help achieve this, full CG babies were created and their heads were replaced later by the live action versions from the shoot by MPC's compositing team led by Ludo Fealy."

The babies are shown performing to the music Rapper's Delight, according to CBSnews.com. But, the commercial while appearing to be shot in Manhattan was really shot in a park in Melbourne.

Evian's Skating Babies really have rocked the advertising world. In a CBS news interview, Colin Marrs of Campaign Magazine was quoted as saying, "It's really only one in fifty, one in one-hundred that has this kind of success as this ad's had."

The Evian Skating Babies can be seen on YouTube.com.

References:

The Dancing Babies at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dancing_baby. Retrieved from the world wide web on 7/9/09.

The Story Behind the Skating Babies at: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/07/09/eveningnews/main5147832.shtml. Retrieved from the world wide web on 7/9/09.

MPC Helps Evian Make Skating Babies at: http://www.vizworld.com/2009/07/mpc-helps-evian-make-skating-babies/. Retrieved from the world wide web on 7/9/09.