Behind the Felt-Crafted Cuteness of Mailchimp’s ‘All in a Day’s Work’ Series

I often wonder why we as humans have such an affection for all things teeny. You don’t have to like hot sauce to think those pocket-sized sriracha bottles are ‘cute’. Heck, a Google search for ‘cute mini things’ will garner nearly one billion results, ranging from minute oranges to microscopic toilet accessories. Research into this phenomenon by Oxford University goes some way to demystifying the matter. Findings show that seeing these things ignites fast brain activity in the orbitofrontal cortex, which are linked to emotion and pleasure. 

It takes mere minutes for us to become emotionally invested in the 27 cm tall figures and their tiny props, in the stop-motion animated Mailchimp series ‘All in a Day’s Work’. But this isn’t just because small things are naturally endearing to us. It’s because their little lives represent the very big problems that small business owners encounter every single day. 

The comedy series documents the ups, downs, and “sometimes-painful truths of life as an entrepreneur or small business owner”. The way these stories resonate is down to the tireless work and graft put in by award-winning live-action and animation director, Effie Pappa, and the production team at A.R.C. The team, in coalition with online publication, It's Nice That are responsible for six episodes in series two: ‘Farm Fresh’, ‘Game Face’, ‘Balancing the Books’, ‘Boss Level Nerves’, 'Recipe for Success’, and ‘Noisy New Neighbours’. Their collaboration made sure that justice was done to these stories, leaving an impact that endures long after the shots finish. 

In this exposing interview, speaking to Effie herself, as well as A.R.C co-founders, Ben Parkin and Alex Bedford, we get to peek behind the veil, finding out exactly how these stories came to life.

LBB> Effie, for context, what size were the props you were working with? Tell us a little more about the puppets too.

Effie> All props and sets are built at 1:6 to 1:7 scale. The size of a notebook, for example, is roughly 3 cm, while a teacup is exactly the size of a garden pea. The puppets are also made in the same scale to fit and rule this universe. Little Robin (from Game Face) is 15 cm tall, while Miquel, his father, is 27 cm tall.

LBB> What we know about this particular art is that it's a labour of love. What is it that you love and loathe about stop motion and why?

Effie> It’s very true, stop motion needs so much patience and persistence, and everything is so fiddly and fragile you simply cannot do it if you are not in love with it. The magical thing about stop motion is that it really gives you the opportunity to create an imaginary world and then see it as a real, tactile build in front of you. You can touch it, move things around, amend it, change its lighting, test its dynamics and create in it. This is the home where the story unfolds. Then, there’s a special bond with the puppets. To create a single scene, we spend days and days dealing only with one thing, and this is the puppet acting and animation. And there’s a lot of physical, soft touch that is necessary in order to animate it, so there’s an extra love and care that is being developed there. 

Stop motion imitates imaginary worlds with materials and textures borrowed from our real world. When we as human beings create worlds in our imagination, we think in colours, shapes, textures, and objects’ physical properties and light – similar to our real world. That’s why I believe stop motion is so close to that, and yet so real.

LBB> How did you work to develop the characters' personalities? What is the process of visualising and animating emotional sequences when they can’t be expressed through words?

Effie> Every character in our stories is very different. Before you even start making the character designs, there’s a little bible I like creating for each one of them. Backstories that you will never see and traits that are probably never expressed, but actually I always believe that there’s something that is being communicated even if it’s invisible. That helps guide the team when bringing its element to life, especially the animator. It’s the same with knowing a person inside out and the ability to predict how they will react in circumstances according to their traits and experiences. 

Before animating a scene, I always discuss with the animator the intentions, and always the inner feelings and motives of the character. Usually we would act it out together for real, feel the body language and incarnate the character before the animation starts. Essentially animators are not only incredibly skilful and talented beings – they are the actors.

LBB> Tell us about your favourite spot, and which was most challenging? 

Effie> I really like all of them for different reasons, but some of them particularly resonate with me more. I love ‘Recipe for Success’ because when Rosalia fails, she puts her ego aside and focuses on working harder and in a more clever way. I find ‘Game Face’ really inspiring because sometimes I can be as nerdy as Helenè and put fun aside, losing spirit. Then of course ‘Boss Level Nerves’ where Maura faces her fears and actually makes it on stage, and ‘Noisy New Neighbours’ which is all about finding what makes us unique in order to compete. 

The last two films were also probably the most challenging ones in terms of executing and shooting. For ‘Boss Level Nerves’ we had to manipulate the set and build it in a way that we could do matchcuts. Essentially, the stage you see at the gala hides under her office floor so we didn’t have to move the puppet and floor at all. Then the nightmare gala scene was shot using a fog machine which made it a little hard on flickering, but worked out perfectly in the end (thank you, genius DOP Giorgos Kokkalis). ‘Noisy New Neighbours’ was challenging because it was the only one that not everything had been shot on camera under the same shot and we worked with numerous plates in every scene. That allowed us to build a much bigger looking ‘super super market’, but on a smaller scale so we could fit in the studio.

LBB> Which character did you grow most fond of?

Effie> Rosalia from ‘Recipe for Success’, because she’s a modern fighter. 

LBB> What about this series might our readers be surprised to learn?

Effie> I think there’s a lot to take and learn that has to do with us as humans and our nature, and of course about small businesses and how challenges can exist for good, leading to growth in ways that we wouldn’t expect.

LBB> What can you tell us about how you worked with It’s Nice That – how did this collaboration come about?

ARC> We all loved ‘All in A Day’s Work’, series one, so we were very happy to receive the email from It’s Nice That to discuss contributing to series two! Right from the off, Effie and the team here jumped into the pitch and put everything in to deliver a brilliant, fizzing proposal full of bright ideas. One of the quickest observations was how supportive and open to ideas It’s Nice That was – it really laid the groundwork for us to creatively develop concepts and consider how best they could be executed across a 12 month-plus period.

LBB> What role did ARC play specifically and how did you collaborate to pull off the project? How long did the whole thing take to complete?

ARC> Stop-frame animation requires many hands working in sync and rhythm. We partnered with a range of creative collaborators to optimise timings and logistics. A.R.C were responsible for delivering on the creative in addition to the overall production planning from the initial development right through to production, post, versioning and delivery. In animation, it is all in the planning and nailing story and design during pre-production before you get into the intricate process of stop motion animation. A team of character designs, storyboarding artists and visual development artists at A.R.C worked closely with Effie and the team at It’s Nice That in our London studio, ensuring we hit the mark editorially and of course within time! As with all projects, we really do love to support every aspect of the pitch and production plan creatively and go that extra mile to bring the heart of the story on screen. 

Our friends and production service collaborators, Takes2, oversaw on-the-ground stop motion filming and took on a portion of the post in Athens. Studio Chroma in Bologna fabricated and made the wonderful and tactile puppets themselves. Faze Studios designed every tiny piece of graphic design – from teeny, tiny book covers right through to products you’d find in the community shop or supermarket, which were printed and integrated into the set design. 

From a timing point of view, production itself took roughly 12 months factoring in pre-production planning and visual development right through to versioning. 

LBB> What can you tell us about the set design and the curation of the puppets?

A.R.C> Fun fact: character puppet designs were modelled on and inspired by some of the production team and friends and collaborators of Karl Toomey, It’s Nice That’s creative director. We worked up a range of styles and looks inspired by real people, which was a fun way to start from and helped channel the design process. 

Ben Parkin’s character was eventually killed off… some say it was a freak off screen accident – we’ll never know. As for dear Ken in ‘Balancing the Books’, he was somewhere between ‘Mock Gold’ Julian in ‘Bridget Jones’ Diary’ and ‘Breaking Bad’ character Saul Goodman.

At the beginning of the project we thought it would be neat to build on this idea. The series of six films took place in one modern town or city where characters interlinked and crossed paths. It began in our storyboarding process and was actually super helpful to consider more about the personalities of our characters. 

These moments of interaction are subtle, we didn't want to overcook the idea, and by creating this interconnected world and set of story lines it helped us to pinpoint design identity and character motives and understand our characters a little more…. which in turn helped the nuance in the animation phase! 

These little weaving narratives can be seen across the series, for example, Joe - the Dad character in ‘Farm Fresh’ who went through a mid-market breakdown - is the character on a remote therapy session with Helené. Tori – the designer in ‘Balancing the Books’ – runs past Maura as she waits for the elevator to go to the creative agency she runs in ‘Boss Level Nerves’ (before she realises she needs to deliver a speech). You’ll spot other characters as they appear naturally in crowds and gatherings too. 

We all grew to love each character for their own mannerisms and quirks so as a set of characters, it was super important they were reflective of a modern environment and represented today. Every tiny design choice needed to support this – such as including ear pods on some characters or adding the right stickers or badges to clothes for other characters. 

Effie didn't want over-complicated camera moves to take away from the nuanced character animation and design. The tactile and colourful nature of the overall look – by using felt as a primary material – meant we could create environments we actually wanted to live in!

LBB> Tell us something about the making of this series that our readers might be surprised to learn.

A.R.C> Some fun facts! 

We tested around five different ideas on how to make Mia’s bubble gum in ‘Farm Fresh’ – one of them being a pink condom – and to create the shot of the smoothie making process, Effie mixed acrylics with lubricant, and chopped prop fruit pieces and rinds of coloured chalk! 

The chilli cuts used in ‘Recipe for Success’ are actually electric cable cuts. One of the things Effie loves most is animating boiling liquids and foaming soap water. And you know – they are exactly the same! Dishwashing liquid magic! The final hot chilli sauce is actually strawberry jam. Once it’s seen it cannot be unseen.

Big thanks to production manager, Barbara Robertson’s young daughter who voiced Robin, to our graphic designer who voiced Joe. You’ll also hear one of our editors Bea and moments of Effie in there too! 

LBB> What would you say were the greatest challenges you faced throughout this process? What has been the most rewarding aspect?

A.R.C> As business owners, we definitely related to a lot of the stories in the scripts even though the characters or locations were totally different…and to some degree, given a large amount of the team were specialist freelance talent, we could all relate. So we all had a part of ourselves to give to the production. So the source material was super relatable to the filmmakers and became a kind of fuel for our individual and mutual engagement. 

We live in a fast, content-rich world where noises and visuals are forever vying for your attention. Our natural instinct was to minimise some of the storytelling setups and instead get to the story quicker. But what we found after our first round of animatics, combining the tactile nature of the world, was the need to slow things down, let it breathe a little more. We went back to the drawing board on a few animatics to re-think how we could embrace some or our limitations. It meant we needed to rethink our animation schedule, but the outcome is better as a result! 

Effie’s warm and graphically-considered world, with felt-puppet style for the series, nodded to her fantastic recent short, INBETWEEN, which did the festival rounds shortly before production. So when you combine relatable, real world observations, with cute, beautifully crafted and handmade material, it means these stories can take a new life of their own and hit different emotional levels. 

At A.R.C we work on long form projects in addition to advertising, so we were no stranger to the challenges that come with long schedules and production pipelines. Unlike other production companies where often the long-form and commercials teams are separate, we intentionally foster and encourage talent to cross over both disciplines, which means the whole team brings extensive experience of understanding both the brand and creative agency needs, paired with the realities of longfrom production. 

It’s Nice That really were fantastic collaborators, being very supportive and encouraging across the process. It's always a rewarding experience to be given a level of autonomy once we were underway; before coming back to the Its Nice That team with a treasure-trove of living, breathing material. 

One of the most rewarding aspects of animation is seeing sketches eventually come to life as puppets in this case and tap into tangible, everyday human experiences!

LBB> Anything else you’d like to add?

A.R.C> Great questions! We’re happy to see the fruits of so many efforts out there, so thank you to It’s Nice That and Mailchimp for their trust and ongoing support, and the team of designers, makers and problem-solvers so integral to the series.

As A.R.C continues to work in longer form content for brands, broadcasters and streamers. AIADWS2 was a fitting example of how great storytelling can be a powerful vehicle to deliver a brand message in an entertaining and knowing way. 

If you want to check out the full series, you can find them all here.