The Canadian restaurant chain Montana's Cookhouse once ran an advertising campaign featuring an unusual comedy team: talking trophy heads of a moose and a deer. I was hired by the visual effects company, Beau Studio, to animate the character performances of these two taxidermic animals. The commercials were very popular, and we ultimately produced six of them between 2006 and 2009. This project was an aesthetic challenge because it was imperative that the characters be likable and charming; however, the concept of two hunting trophies coming to life and speaking is inherently somewhat macabre.

Both the moose and deer were constructed by studio founder Beau Cameron, one of the rare geniuses in the computer graphics industry. Given enough time, Beau could perform, by himself, virtually every technical feat involved in creating digital creatures. He designed, modeled, rigged, and furred the beasts, then supervised the VFX shot creation. Beau's two right-hand men, Anthony Bussiere and David Sliviak, handled the texture mapping, lighting, rendering, and compositing. All commercials were directed by Steve "Spaz" Williams, a former Jurassic Park animator who, with little to no interference, trusted our team to create all of the creature effects ourselves. Steve possessed a rare quality for an industry director: he gave us a great deal of much-appreciated latitude on the project.

For me, it was an absolute pleasure to animate the characters in these commercials. Character performance was somewhat constrained by the limitation of animal heads without bodies; however, at the same time, that restriction accelerated the entire animation process tremendously. In the first commercial, Steve requested very restrained character performances because the moose and deer heads were not supposed to be noticeable by customers in the restaurant. In subsequent commercials, that restriction was lifted, and the animals became much more lively.

Fortunately, our voice talent's performances were excellent, which helped provide ideas for certain character quirks. The deer was the funny, wacky, neurotic one, depicted with snappy movement, while the moose was essentially the "straight man" who moved in a slower, more deliberate fashion due to his greater mass. Both the director and the client must have been pleased with the character portrayals, as virtually every shot I animated was fully approved without any requests for revisions. Following that successful venture, my nickname soon became "Onetime" at Beau Studio!

The creature effects for the Montana's Cookhouse commercials were created quickly and efficiently within a very reasonable budget. This demonstrates just how much can be accomplished by a four-man team.