MPC Amsterdam, Wieden + Kennedy Amsterdam and Acne’s Tompa & Rondo produce idyllic film for Milka, with MPC Remote Grade by Jean-Clément Soret

With Easter just around the corner, Milka reminds us that it’s not all about eating chocolate

Directed by Acne’s Tompa & Rondo, the latest film for Milka - with VFX by MPC Amsterdam - opens in an idyllic outdoor setting: mountain backdrop and flower filled meadows complete with butterflies and dappled sunlight. A group of children race and compete to find the ultimate treasure – the Milka chocolate bunny. To reach it, they need a little ingenuity and a lot of imagination – and essentially to do what they do best: play.

With the sweet prize proving tricky to get hold of, they use whatever they can find to build a crane from twigs, branches, old bike wheels – all with the help of their spiky little friend the hedgehog who befriends and helps the group of friends at the end of this uplifting spot which reminds us that ‘Tenderness is inside’.  

VFX craft

To perfect the photo-real look of the hedgehog, which we see in extreme close-up, a pre-vis was carried out so our artists could craft details from the hedgehog's weight and shadow in the basket to how the chocolate Milka bunny gets pulled in by the crane. Props were created and added for perfect shadow and light interaction; we wanted to convey a sense of curiosity and motivation and the team even crafted a detailed digital version of the basket to allow the hedgehog's fingers to fit around the spiral-woven edge.

Dirk Riesenfeld, VFX Supervisor (2D), says: “We wanted to keep everything looking natural but give the environment a little extra something to make it that bit more interesting, so we created the CG fish in the river, the spiders and spider net in the cave, butterflies and birds; it all adds to that fantasy Alpine world that sets the scene for the film.’