For the recent Telstra campaign, Stone Dogs brought together on-set supervision, colour grading and complex Flame compositing, alongside Passion's detailed stop motion craft to deliver a series of highly polished, wonderfully charming films.

We spoke with Dave Kiddie, Lead Flame Artist on the project and Co-Owner of Stone Dogs about how it all came together.

What was your favourite part about the job?

I think the best part was being on set with Catherine, Sam, George and the animation team and making sure everything was covered properly from a compositing point of view. Having Flame there on set meant we could test things straight away. Blockouts, early sky passes, cloud passes. It gave us a chance to check if anything needed adjusting before it became a bigger issue later on.

That kind of setup just makes the whole process smoother. You are not waiting until post to find problems, you are catching them while things are still flexible. It also means you can make sure what is being captured will actually work in the final composite without too many surprises.

And honestly, the sets were incredible. The work coming out of Clapham Road Studios is always impressive. There is a real level of care in the model making and set design, and that makes a huge difference when you are integrating everything in post.

What was the most technically challenging aspect?

Outside of the usual compositing across multiple passes, the hardest part was building the 8 second loopable sections from the 30 second films.

It meant rethinking timing quite a bit. We had to retime the rotation from Earth into space, rebuild and reanimate parts of the sequence in Flame, and in some cases remove and then reintroduce elements so the loop felt completely invisible.

The rig removal also needed careful handling. It is not just about painting things out. You have to preserve shadows and interaction with the environment, otherwise the shot immediately starts to feel artificial.

What makes working on stop motion jobs different to live action?

I have always loved stop motion. A lot of that probably comes from growing up with it. There is a charm to it that you do not really get anywhere else.

Technically the biggest difference is timing. With stop motion you are often working in twos, so each frame is effectively held for two exposures. That changes how you approach everything.

Any cleanup or added VFX has to respect that rhythm exactly. If it slips even slightly, it stands out straight away. Live action is more flexible in that sense because every frame is unique, so you do not have that same structural constraint.

How do you approach working with international clients on jobs like Telstra?

In terms of process it is very similar to UK work, but you have to be much more aware of timing and feedback cycles.

On this project the client was essentially a day ahead of us, so we had to structure delivery carefully. We would aim to have shots ready by mid morning our time so they could review them in their evening. That way feedback would come back while we were still working and we could keep things moving without losing a day.

Once you get into that rhythm it works well, but it does require discipline around deadlines and turnover.

Does every job teach you something new? If so what did you learn on this one?

It was not so much a completely new technique, more a chance to apply existing tools in a slightly more thoughtful way.

One detail we added was generating accurate night skies for Sydney and Perth, set to the exact date and time the films were going live.

We did not tell the client ahead of delivery. It was just a small detail we wanted to include. When they saw it, they were really pleased. It's a subtle thing, but we always strive for attention to those kind of details, bringing something extra when you can. They tend to stay with people more than you expect.

The Telstra project is a great example of how planning, collaboration and careful compositing all come together to produce beautiful results. A lot of the work is invisible when it's done properly, but that's usually the point.