DUSTIN SCHIRER

CHEWY CHANNEL

Creative Production Director
Haribo

HARIBO wanted to do something on Instagram that wasn’t just another 15-second ad nobody would sit through.

So the creative team came to us with a perfectly reasonable idea: build an entire streaming network starring gummy bears.

We had absolutely no idea how to make it.

That became the fun part. Our production team had to figure out the rules of this tiny world from scratch. How big are the sets? How do the bears move? What’s practical? What’s motion or VFX? How do you puppeteer something that’s roughly an inch tall and has no joints? Important questions.

Eventually, Chewy Channel became a rotating lineup of shows like the workplace comedy Bearly Corporate and fantasy series Sour Sorcerers. Everything was shot in handmade dioramas built to gummy-bear scale, using a mix of practical effects, wires, magnets, fishing line, motion, and post-production trickery. Sometimes we intentionally left the rigging visible. Remember, they were gummy bears.

As Creative Production Director, I led the production team responsible for figuring all of that out and oversaw production and post from start to finish. Each series was only a few minutes long, but there was a ridiculous amount of production packed into those few minutes. New sets. New characters. New problems. Then we’d finish one and start figuring out the next.

Turns out making very small television is a surprisingly large amount of work.

AWARDS

• ADDY Awards — Gold (Online / Interaction)

• KC Ad Club — Best Use of IGTV, Best Use of Native Advertising

• Shorty Awards — Best Use of IGTV, Best Use of Native Advertising, Bronze Distinction (Best Branded Series)

• Webby Awards — Official Honoree (Best Use of Native Advertising; Social Content Series & Campaigns, Food & Drink)