In a move from the 'reality' advertising style, where 'consumers' talk to camera, the new campaign for Bank of Ireland features mythical Irish creatures addressing their audience.

Directed by Rory Kelleher (of Sunsilk Monsters fame), the first in the series, "Elf" features Fiona, a young Irish Elfin girl telling us all about her aspirations in life, chiefly the need for a bank to support her when she climbs the career ladder up and out of the shoe factory in which we see her interviewed.

The post production process was complex. Once Rory came up with the initial concept for the look of "Fiona" and liaised with Glassworks' Alastair Hearsum the 'real life' Elf was cast. Work then had to start on the techniques to reshape the actress' face, taking care to retain her original charm but adding a heavy elfin twist.

After much testing it was obvious that the best way forward was to totally rebuild her face whilst borrowing as much original detail as possible. The actress' head was scanned in 3d and then remodelled using a unique face re-shaping technique and animated to match Fiona's dialogue, in addition every head movement had to be tracked perfectly (a time consuming process for Will Davies in 3D) and the blend between real Fiona and elfin Fiona made as smooth as possible. The ear design was also developed from Rory's concept drawings by Glassworks 3D artist Vaclav Cizkovsky, animated by Alastair and composited in flame to add a luminescent transparency. Daniel Jahnel created around 30 background Elves in 3D using motion capture to drive their movement. Every shot was scanned and worked on at a higher resolution, this helped keep the original detail and so the balance between reality and fantasy.

Fiona's new head, the re-animated background elves, the live action plates and miniature sets were all brought together by Glassworks' 2D flint and flame team led by Duncan Malcolm. Additional lighting and "miniature detail" were also added to help suspend the disbelief - the elfin magic, if you like.