CLOSE-UP: CRAFT/BT BROADBAND - BT's launch of broadband is being promoted with an epic ad.(Brief Article)

The industry may be suffering a downturn, but the creation of one campaign has kept some production and post-production companies very busy this year.

BT's broadband internet access campaign is firmly in the 'blockbuster' category, according to St Luke's creative directors and the authors of the scripts, Al Young and Julian Vizard. They claim it's the biggest project they've ever been involved in.

Their colleagues at the production company Hammer & Tongs, the post-production company The Mill, the special effects shop Asylum, the sound specialist Wave and the music agency Soundtree agree with Young and Vizard.

'When we first read the script, we thought 'this is huge',' H&T's producer, Nick Goldsmith, recalls. 'It had everything you could possibly ever dream of in an ad - fantastic visuals, a compelling message and lots of human involvement,' he adds.

The head of TV at St Luke's, Kate Male, says the director, Garth Jennings, was chosen because of his ability to make the human angle the most important element of the ad.

BT approved the script in mid-January, and by the end of the month, Jennings had done the first 'treatment'. The Mill was briefed on the character creation, the dragon, the rhino and the WW2 fighter plane among others.

At the same time, Aardman Animations entered the fray with its claymation pig models, and Asylum started work on constructing a 1.5 tonne steel rhino, working out the technicalities of creating a windswept market street for the plane scene and testing the collapse capabilities of Vitara Jeeps.