It means farewell to the drenching heat and hello cooler breezy weather. It means watching spooky movies under your favorite knitted fall blanket. It means long holidays and family get-togethers, and sleeping in your now-tiny childhood room to the somehow comforting humming of grandpa’s sleep apnea machine. It is going back to that safe childhood place where everything is always okay.

Naturally, we were excited for our client’s launch of Tastykake® Pumpkin Baked Pies. So much so that we wanted to make the creative very special. The goal was to use visual vocabulary to convey the product’s deliciousness, along with the ethereal autumn feeling of coziness and warmth inspired by its unique taste. Instead of filming the product, we opted to build the promotional assets with CGI.

Just like there’s more to pumpkin-flavored stuff other than its taste, there was a lot more to this creative. The thing is, for the past few years, I’ve been spending my evenings deepening my knowledge of Cinema4D – a program used to render out the graphic effects for the Avengers, Chronicles of Narnia, and, of course, Fast and Furious 7. Needless to say, every chance to apply this unique skillset in an actual, hands-on project with a national brand gets me beyond thrilled.

The rest of it was really a matter of solid teamwork, a couple late nights, and of course, several “there’s no way I can make it work” moments. The C4D compositing process included modeling a realistic Tastykake Pumpkin Pie packaging and cutting the top off of a pumpkin. I filled it with a bunch of fall leaves powered by somewhat realistic physics and dynamics, lit the scene, and bada-bing bada-boom. We’re off to post. The frame sequence was imported into After Effects, where particular effects, like the fog, along with the camera movement, color correction, and an awesome animated carved type designed by another teammate, Jason Cottrell, were added. Next thing you know – we had finally finished the masterpiece! Have a great pumpkin season!