MPC Advertising (The Mill) partner with adam&eveDDB on the Elton John starring John Lewis campaign ‘The Boy & The Piano’

John Lewis launch their famous Christmas campaign ‘The Boy & The Piano’, starring the one and only Elton John, featuring VFX and Colour Grade from MPC Advertising (now The Mill).

MPC Advertising teamed up with adam&eveDDB to recreate models of Sir Elton John, throughout his life, in extreme detail for the brand’s highly anticipated Christmas campaign.

This type of VFX is rarely seen in advertising post production and is usually reserved for feature films. During the shoot, actors were made up with specialist prosthetics to create a base for the team to work with. The teams performed scans of the actors, photographing their skin and making busts of each person. In order to create the skin from the blend of the scans taken of the actors with the CG model of Sir Elton John, various passes were created. In addition to the creation of Elton, the teams re-created each of the iconic venues by hand. Mood, lighting and the time of day of each environment was also incredibly important. This was not only for seamless transition but to provoke the different levels of excitement and emotion to be found at each venue.