Target approached Motion Theory with the goal of creating a dynamic, engaging animated world that embodied teamwork and captured audiences with the personality and style of a feature-length animated feature -- all while echoing the friendly, stylish surprises of the Target brand.

The piece opens with a monumental Target bullseye opening at the touch of a button -- casting a shadow across the landscape and introducing a crew of quirky little workers standing alongside their machines, staring in awe as we see what's inside the bullseye for the first time.

The crew of characters immediately starts working together in clever ways to get the enormous bullseye stocked with freshness. Countless different fruits and vegetables are carted in via all sorts of familiar-looking items built into extraordinary machines.

The tempo of the story bursts into activity as our camera glides through the action, highlighting remarkable clockwork efficiency within what would otherwise appear to be absolute chaos. We explore the team spirit and personality in cinematic fashion, moving from vertigo-inducing high angles and sweeping helicopter shots that look down at the ant-sized workers below, to ground-level angles that show off the great mass towering over us. The animated team members resemble the work of Santa's elves, illustrating productivity and teamwork on a breathtaking scale. Whether they are riding zippy motorized three-wheeled vehicles, using combination wheelbarrow-catapults or bike-powered conveyor belts, or even scaling the bullseye on Mission Impossible-style harnesses, the team is only satisfied when every little nook and cranny in the bullseye is jam-packed with everything fresh. The exterior isn't ignored either, as we end with a loud squeak of a squeegee making the bullseye shine. After all that work, the whole army of workers disappears back to where they came from, leaving us with the original happy, clean, fun Target bullseye, but now with a million more fun things inside.

Motion Theory Director Chris Riehl led a team of animators and artists through a very condensed production schedule that mirrored the character and story development of a much larger CG animated film. The goal from the beginning was to create human and naturalistic characters with the depth to support a great variety of stories. The characters were all developed as in-house originals, which also creates a range of Target-branded utilitarian uniforms and nifty gadgets. Riehl's vision was to create an engaging and detailed story, providing viewers with new experiences and discoveries even after many views. "Partnering with Target and having the opportunity to create an entirely new animated world with original characters and storyline content was an exciting and fulfilling process for the whole team from the very start. The team and I explored every possible detail you see from the memorable cast of characters to the host of strangely specific heavy machinery and vehicles which we hope comes through when watching the spot," says the director.

Danny Zobrist, the project's CG/Animation Supervisor and Character Lead, explains, "Our team jumped at the chance to create a group of characters that seem to have a life of their own and a world of style and personality. There was a lot of love put into each of these characters and that's what makes the spot shine."