The Bear & The Hare (USA 2013)

There once was an animal who had never seen Christmas. As autumn winds turn to winter snow, the bear begins his annual retreat into hibernation to sleep his way through the best part of the year. The festive spirit is strong though, and his friend the hare is determined to give him a gift he has never received before – Christmas.

This is a classic Christmas tale in the John Lewis tradition, but the scale of the project and the innovative combination of animated techniques involved in creating it are unprecedented. The marriage of traditional hand-drawn 2D animation with stop-frame model animation creates a tangible world full of texture and detail that conveys the honesty behind the John Lewis Christmas message.