Over 400 of the world’s most experienced award-winning advertising creatives from around the globe cast thousands of votes to determine this year’s award winners at the New York Festivals Advertising Awards, with Australia’s own Alt.vfx taking home GOLD in Visual Effects and SILVER in Animation for the company’s work on Bank of Melbourne’s ‘If You Have The Will’ campaign.

The campaign launched with a rags to riches story of a sassy penguin from St. Kilda who has the will to go her own way and take on the city. She enters the city, and with the help of the bank, launches her own business, first teaching swimming and then selling branded swimwear, as well as integrating into the local community.

Onset, the crew worked with a taxidermy penguin to give all of the crew and actors something to work with.

Andrew Hellen, Head of VFX at Alt, said: “For our CG performance, we searched for all the ferry penguin reference we could find. The aim being we wanted her to remain true to a Ferry Penguin and avoid anthropomorphising her. Our animators still had to bring her to life, it’s never as straight forward as just ‘copying’ the performance. Grooming is based on a modified version of Houdini’s fur system for setting up the flow and direction of the feathers. As well as our normal rigging system, we ran a specialised fat/skin jiggling simulation for the penguin that helps sell the illusion of weight and deformation as it waddles and moves through each shot.”

As well as Gold and Silver in the VFX and Animation, the team’s work on AAI Insurance ‘Dinosaur Vs Unicorn’ was also named as a finalist in both categories.