For Christmas 2018, John Lewis & Partners tell the story of how some gifts can be more than just a gift. And how one gift, in particular, inspired, changed and influenced the course of a little boy's life. That little boy just happens to be Elton John.

The advert opens in the present day with a shot of the musician sat at his piano playing the opening notes of the iconic “Your Song” before going back in time to chart his meteoric rise to stardom. Eventually, we are shown the origin of his talents: a piano gifted to him for Christmas by his mother and grandmother.

In the run-up to the festive period, the battle of the Christmas adverts is something of a phenomenon in the UK. As the widely recognized reigning champions, there is always a palpable excitement and a huge amount of speculation around John Lewis’ offering. With a heartwarming tale starring superstar Elton John, plus some incredible VFX magic, 2018 was no exception…

The challenge behind this film was to create a seamless reverse chronology of Elton John’s career highlights through compositing photo-realistic CG faces and environments across multiple eras. After warping shots of the various actors as a base, we blended in a full CG sculpted face.

The performances were hand animated to match closely as possible to Elton John from the references available, rather than captured from an actor. Each facial shape was carefully sculpted to match the given age and tiny facial movements were instrumental in the aim to make it look like “archived footage” but with modern-day image quality.