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Vodafone’s 2006 TV spot, that first aired on UK television and cinema screens, visualises people talking on the phone by bringing those familar comic speech bubbles to 3D life.

The classic graphic device of the speech bubble undergoes a serious technical update at the hands of Framestore CFC. The five weeks of bubble work started with the agency’s ‘anti-reference’: they emphatically did not want the effect to look like balloons. VFX supervisor Jake Mengers says that lead him to a use sub-surface scattering 3D render which “holds a certain amount of light, and gives a different feel about the volume and what’s ‘inside’ it.” The team then inserted a dynamic hair system into the bubbles so they could be tethered to their speakers.