The campaign was created to promote the reverse camera in the Vauxhall Astra Ultimate. To do that in an unexpected way, we took globally-recognised stories and told them backwards – to show that when things happen in reverse (like when you reverse a car), they don’t always end happily. Each story was told by a different animation company, giving the campaign a deliberately broad and varied visual style – all tied together by the same core idea.

Each film used animation, motion design and graphics in a different and unique way, covering a wide range of technological and artistic techniques. From bespoke CGI characters and worlds to a mix of stop-motion filmmaking and digital facial replacement, there was a level of commitment to detail and craft that took thousands of hours to achieve. In Jack & The Beanstalk, complex detailing and textures were introduced to each element and sequence before being brought to life by animators. Particular attention was given to skin, fabric, feathers, clouds and vegetation – all crafted and finessed by hand in a digital space. Ugly Duckling was a pure CGI piece, with characters and environments developed over several stages of experimentation. In Cinderella, digital techniques were combined with stop-motion filmmaking, with CGI helping to add lip-synching and facial movements – all painstakingly rendered to fit seamlessly into the overall stop-motion style. For each film, the goal was to create a completely unique animation style that brought classic stories to life in a modern and unexpected way using the most sophisticated animation techniques – while ensuring that storytelling was the strongest and most central part of each one. It was also essential to use animation in a way that retained the Vauxhall brand’s democratic and approachable tone, but to do it in three very different ways. In total, the teams from the UK, Spain and Brazil spent more than 5,000 hours completing the work.