Better On A Better Mobile Network
By Jeff Low
Jeff Low’s 26-part stop-motion campaign for Telstra is a series of strange and endearing miniatures – a talking mushroom here, a cow on a joyride there – each living in a specific location within Australia.
The voices were cast from real people living in the towns featured, grounding the work in a sense of place and texture that feels truly authentic. Built around regional voices and animal archetypes, the process began with Jeff recording voice animatics himself, shaping the tone through rhythm, emotion, and what he calls “human truths rather than jokes told.”
Low also brought on acclaimed animation director Tobias Fouracre, whose experience on Isle of Dogs and Fantastic Mr. Fox made the duo perfectly suited to bring this uniquely complex production to life. Jeff’s sound-first approach – paired with Tobias’s world-class stop-motion direction – allowed the characters to feel both absurd and oddly real.
The production process took close to six months, with characters designed down to the last feather. The result is a campaign that feels hand-made, deeply local, and funny in a way that sneaks up on you. A childlike visual world filled with emotional specificity – stitched together by master craftsmanship, comedic timing, and a deep understanding of how Australians actually talk.
Watch the BTS film here.
Each character took countless hours to be designed and built by a team of expert craftspeople, led by Tobias Fouracre, before being manipulated by hand, frame by frame, over a weeks-long stop-motion shoot. With the process multiplied by twenty-six, it was truly an epic undertaking.
“The agency, (Bear Meets Eagle on Fire, headed up by Micah Walker) was so kind to me on this job. They gave me hard-won ingredients and I was just tasked with making it funnier. That’s a dream if you’re me.
I would take whatever animal and place they pre-determined and just perform dialogue into a microphone until I hit some bits I felt like a good way to get a laugh. Human truths rather than jokes told was sort of how I tried to think of it.”
– Jeff
Jeff draws from his experience as a musician and comedian when approaching his filmmaking.
“I do tend to work almost more with my ears than my eyes – at least up front. When I hear a thing I can see it and because I spent so much time in recording studios, I know how to get a sound design going pretty fast and that becomes the basis for deciding what shots will get the most from a given piece of writing.”
