2025 Winner

The Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) aimed to build its adult audience for one of its core offerings – natural history. The result was the creation of “Opera,” a three-minute film that features a hyper-realistic animated chimpanzee who, surveying a variety of landscapes, sings an operatic aria from L’elisir d’amore – an impassioned love song to the planet and all the species that shaped its history. Through the film’s special effects, viewers watch the beauty, chaos, destruction and rebirth of the natural world, viewed from underwater, on land, in the air and from outer space. The film depicts the small, wonderful moments in which the natural world interacts with our daily life, as well as the phenomena that led to five mass extinction events. The film ran as a ROM exhibit and online, while multiple cutdowns ran in cinema and CTV.

Credits

AGENCY
Agency: Broken Heart Love Affair
Chief Creative Officers: Jaimes Zentil, Craig McIntosh
Chief Strategy Officer: Jay Chaney
VP, Strategy: Carly Miller
Art Director: Jaimes Zentil
Copywriter: Craig McIntosh
EVP, Managing Director: Rachelle Claveau
VP, Client Success: Cass Farry
Director, Client Success: Jake White
SVP, Executive Producer: Erica Metcalfe

CLIENT
Client / Brand Name: Royal Ontario Museum
CMO: Sally Tindal
VP, Brand Marketing: Kathryn Brownlie
Manager, Marketing: Katlyn Olo
Manager, Marketing: Emily Wright

PRODUCTION
Company: Revolver Films
Executive Producer: Richard Cureton, Luc Frappier
Director: Rune Milton
Director Of Photography: Paul Meyers
Line Producer: Andrew Peterson
Choreographer, Performer: Jennifer Rose

CASTING
Company: Bao Casting
Casting Director: Damian Bao

STOCK FOOTAGE
Company: Film Supply

EDITING
Company: Chemistry Film
Executive Producer: Camilla Nilsson
Editor: Adam Nielsen

CG & VFX
Company: Chemistry Film
Executive Producer: Camilla Nilsson
Creative Director: Mikael Balle
CG Supervisor: Kim Fersling
VFX Supervisor: Mario Maruska
Character TD: Dennis Bahnson
Pipeline TD: Esben Bjerring
Character Artist: Dmytro Teslenko
Rigging: Snapper Tech
Lead Animator: Gabriela Popov
Animator: José Luis de Lucas, Devika Nagarkar
CG Generalist: Dennis Bahnson
CG Artist: Daniel Karlsson
FX Artist: Esben Bjerring, Grigoriy Voyakin
Lead Lighting Artist: Aleksei Dorokhin
Compositor: Bruno Edelman, Victor Beckmann
Post Coordinator: Rose Aspöck, Jakob Witt

COLOUR, VFX & FINISHING
Company: Chemistry Film
Colourist: Nurali Kushkov

AUDIO
Audio House: Chemistry Sound & Music
Sound Design & Mix: Kevin Koch

Record Company: Warner Classics / Erato
Business Affairs: Makoto Nakata
Opera: L'elisir d'amore
Song: Una Furtiva Lagrima by Donizetti
Artist: Pene Pati and the Opera National de Bordeaux
Composer: Jonas Horstad Larsen
Producer: Olivier Rosset

MEDIA
Agency: Cairns Oneil
Media Contact: Tim Hughes