Dougal Wilson on John Lewis and Christmas

Last week saw the Christmas floodgates open in the advertising world as many of the big shopping brands and high street retailers launched their festive campaigns for 2014.

As expected, leading the charge was John Lewis’ eagerly awaited offering, which came in the form of an emotional two-minute tale about a little boy and a CG penguin named Monty (created by MPC London) through adam&eveDDB and Blink Productions.

With the ad on everyone's lips since it broke on Thursday and #MontythePenguin trending for much of the week, below, the ad’s director, Dougal Wilson, talks about what goes into working on such an celebrated campaign (having helmed previous JL Christmas spots The Long Wait and The Journey) and what appealed about the project this year.

What was it that attracted you to the script for this project?

It was a really great script, written by Rick and Dan at A&E DDB. I liked the idea of a very natural-looking penguin living among normal middle class suburbia. And I didn't really see the end coming when I read it (but I'm often a bit slow with these things).

You’ve worked with adam&eve and John Lewis a lot so is there an expectation that the script will be great before you’ve even read it?

Yes, especially with the Christmas script. But then when the script turns out to be really good, like this one, you feel relieved. Then you feel terrified because you don't want to mess it up.

When did you start working on the project and did you have any input into the idea and the script?

Bizarrely, I think I started in May or June. My main input was the series of scenes the boy and the penguin would go through, and the style and behaviour of the penguin, which I was keen to be as natural as possible, like something from Frozen Planet. I spent a lot of time watching Antarctic documentaries.

The little boy is great in the ad; how hard was it to find him?

We saw a lot of little boys, from London, Glasgow, Nottingham and Manchester. There was a lot of pressure to find someone with a certain indefinable quality, especially given the boy in The Long Wait had been so great. Rhys came in quite late in the casting process, but had this lovely, lively, natural quality that immediately made you think he'd have an imaginary friend.

How challenging is it working with a CG character and how did the child actor adapt to that?

We based the character as closely as possible on clips and photographs of Adelie penguins in the wild. I tried to cut documentary footage into an animatic so that I would get a sense in advance of what the penguin would feel like in the shot. MPC then gave me rough animations based on these, which I could also cut together. So I had quite a clear idea of what the penguin would do.

Rhys, the little boy, knew he would eventually be seen with a penguin in the finished commercial, but had to use his imagination when interacting with something that wasn't there. Often, we gave him something to play off, like a penguin mockup, or a funny puppet, or just myself or Jim (the AD), reacting back to him. I tried to break the performance down as much as possible into pieces, to make it as easy as I could for him.

You’ve worked on a number of John Lewis Christmas campaigns; could you have envisioned when you started how the release of an advert would become such a cultural event?

I had no idea it would become so popular. There's a huge degree of chance and serendipity when making something that's supposed to entertain people, and somehow these ads must have resonated the right way. A lot of this I'm sure is down to the scripts.

And because of the campaigns’ huge success – commercially and critically – do you feel more pressure to succeed each time you work on one?

Of course, but you just have to make sure you do your best and hope it works.

How much input do you have on the choice of the music track?

I have input into the track choice, and I often plan the story out to music while I'm shooting. But the client has final say on the artist. One of the things I'm most happy with about this campaign, however, is that all the proceeds from the Christmas single will be going to the WWF (World Wide Fund for Nature). Although highly characterful and entertaining, Adelie penguins are very much at risk due to climate change (the Southern Ocean is warming rapidly, meaning their feeding grounds are being affected), oil pollution and over fishing.

The WWF's penguin programme wants to improve the management of Antarctica's resources and safeguard its wildlife by establishing a network of marine protected areas, covering at least 10 per cent of the 20 million square km Southern Ocean. They also want to stop illegal and unsustainable fishing practices, and, maybe most importantly, raise awareness of the threats of climate change, which we all face. You can buy the single and contribute, or just donate to WWF.