Stop-motion recipe series for Neff and AO.com
A series of stop-motion recipe films created for AO.com and Neff to promote the Neff Slide&Hide oven through playful, ingredient-led storytelling.
Overview
AO.com contacted me after seeing my viral stop-motion film Stop-Motion Biscuit Cake, and asked me to create a series of stop-motion recipe videos to promote sales of Neff’s Slide&Hide ovens.
The concept was built around recipes from the Neff cookbook, with ingredients coming together as characters to bake the final dish. The oven itself had to play a key role in the story, particularly the Slide&Hide door feature, while still feeling naturally embedded in the world of the films.
The timeline was tight, as the recipes were seasonal for Easter, and all storyboards, drafts, and final videos needed to be signed off by both AO’s marketing team and the Neff product team.
Role
Stop-motion | Direction | Animation | Cinematography | Editing | Compositing | Motion graphics | Graphic design
I travelled to AO’s headquarters in Manchester to work with the AO marketing team and the Neff product team on early concepts, storyboards, style direction, and production guidelines.
After those initial sessions, I returned to Ireland to produce the series. I worked as the sole director, cinematographer, editor, compositor, and motion graphics designer, with support from my partner and collaborator on the stop-motion animation (and baking) during the physical production.
The challenge
The series needed to feel playful and handmade, while still working as a professional product-led campaign.
Each film had to:
- promote a specific seasonal recipe
- showcase the Neff Slide&Hide oven naturally
- stay within AO and Neff brand guidelines
- use colour, props, and set design carefully
- feel charming and organic rather than overly polished or artificial
The production also had to work within a tight delivery window, with approvals needed from both AO and Neff at each major stage.
Approach
The creative direction was built around the idea that the ingredients were the “actors” in each recipe.
Rather than simply showing a recipe being made, the films gave the ingredients small personalities and physical behaviours: rolling, jumping, falling, sliding, and coming together to create the finished bake.
A lot of the charm came from keeping the animation as organic as possible. While there was compositing and rotoscoping in post-production, I kept to a strict rule that the core movement should come from real stop-motion rather than digital shortcuts.
One shot in the Hot Cross Buns video, where a lemon rolls across the set, took over three hours to shoot. That probably says everything about the level of patience involved, and also why the final result feels tactile and real.
Stop-motion graphics
Each video ended with a recipe title card. We explored a few ways to make these feel part of the same handmade world and eventually settled on a blackboard-style animation that appeared to draw itself onto the surface.
These title graphics were the only part of the series that wasn’t created organically through stop-motion. I designed each title treatment and used small visual references to the recipe itself, for example, shaping part of the “Victoria Sponge” lettering to resemble a slice of cake.
I then animated the graphics in After Effects and composited them onto footage of a physical blackboard, so they still felt like they belonged inside the stop-motion world rather than sitting on top of it.
Graphic design for set props
Because the videos couldn’t show any branded products other than Neff, I created fictional food packaging for ingredients that needed to be recognisable on screen.
This included custom labels and packaging for items such as baking powder, cornflour, yeast, and ground ginger. Each design had to be clear enough to read quickly, but still feel like a believable object within the set.
This was a small detail, but it helped keep the world of the films consistent while avoiding unwanted third-party branding.
Behind the scenes
The whole production was brilliant fun from start to finish. No two days were the same, and almost every problem needed some kind of odd, practical solution.
The ingredients kept melting under the heat of the lights, so we froze them before shooting, then baked fresh versions of the recipes separately for the final food shots. For one shot where a bag of flour jumps off a shelf, we strapped a GoPro to its “head” to capture the movement from its point of view, which is exactly as ridiculous as it sounds.
It was painstaking, messy, and occasionally chaotic, but that handmade process was also what gave the films their charm.
The Great Egg-Scape: The stars of the show in action.
Flour Adventure Sports: For the shot where the bag of flour jumps off the shelf, we strapped a GoPro to it’s “head” to capture the footage. For real!
Directing the “Actors”: Absolute divas, every single one of them. I was constantly walking on eggshells around them (groan!)
Interview in OTIA magazine
If you’d like to hear more of the behind the scenes stories from this shoot, and others, check out my interview in OTIA magazine.
Conclusion
🙌 Outcome
The final series gave AO.com and Neff a distinctive set of seasonal promotional films that combined recipe content, product storytelling, and handmade stop-motion craft.
The campaign was very well received internally and externally, and according to AO.com’s Brand Manager, it became one of the most watched video series AO.com had produced and continues to be used by Neff to demonstrate the Slide&Hide feature.
Recommendations
"The baking stop motion series that Alan created for Neff was received incredibly by everyone internally & externally. To this day it is still the most watched video series ao.com produced & is still used by Neff to show off the Slide & Hide feature. Great work & would love the opportunity to work again in the near future. "
Toby Hopkinson
Brand manager, AO.com
