Minions, meet Shark Week
Minions, the spin-off from Universal’s Despicable Me, was timed to come out the same week as Shark Week. That made it a natural partnership for Universal and Discovery.
01Three concepts
We scripted three concepts. The first was a critical review spot written by sharks, or rather by shark-based newspapers: The Great White Gazette calls it “deee-licious,” and another paper says it’s “finally a film with taste.” The second took Shark Week into the Minions’ world: Minions at a big Shark Week celebration, on a cruise ship, and finally one Minion in a hot tub with two blow-up sharks, very excited about his Shark Week experience.
02An editor’s crazy idea
What if we take this stuff where they’re on the side of the road and put them on a little island in the ocean, or on a float, and one jumps out of the water? I love it when my team has ideas. So we ran with it, and it turned out to be the most iconic part of the whole campaign.John Davidson, project breakdown
That idea came from our editor, Kyle. Thank you, Kyle.
03The Hail Mary
The third spot was the biggest challenge. We had tried to work the Minions into actual Shark Week footage but had never quite cracked it. In the last week, with a change of creative concept, it came down to going in one day and not leaving until we had a really crazy cut: the Minions, inside Shark Week. That meant a lot of rotoscoping, some puppet-tool animation and some 3D.
- BreakdownThe three concepts and how they came together, from John.
- Newspapers :30Sharks review the movie.
- Excited :30Shark Week in the Minions’ world.
- Little Guys :30The Minions crash Shark Week footage.
