Snowglobes

Every year we look forward to British department store John Lewis' Christmas ad campaign. These ad campaigns are centered around a beautifully-animated video that tells a heartwarming or tear-jerking Christmas story. This one is no exception. Except it's not a John Lewis Christmas ad. This one was created in two weeks last spring for a class assignment by Nick Jablonka, a British teenager with a computer.

Viewed more 375,000 times on YouTube by Sunday evening, the advert was produced by Nick Jablonka, an A-level media student, who had studied the mini-movies for his coursework.

“It was a very rushed piece, I’ve left it till the last month to do it … Creating a short film is a lot of work especially when it’s CGI. I was responsible for things outside of my comfort zone like character animation and lighting,” he said.

The real John Lewis campaigns cost millions of pounds and take months to create. Yet thousands of people were convinced that this was their 2016 ad. Good job, Nick! He's got technical information about the project at the YouTube link. Oh yeah, the real John Lewis ad is expected to debut Thursday. (via Nag on the Lake)