Playful production with King
Playful production with King
Playful production with King
Playful production with King
Services
Hero Film
Employer Brand
Big idea
Locations
Applications
King, creators of Candy Crush Saga, have always found a way into people’s hearts and home screens. But, they aren't always at the front of potential employees' minds. They came to us, looking for a Hero film which encapsulates exactly who they are whilst nodding towards their purpose: to make the world playful. The films team immediately got to work (right after finishing level 52 with a sweet Colour Bomb.)
WHERE RECRUITMENT MARKETING MEETS HOLLYWOOD.
The initial brief was twofold: give life to King’s EVP tagline and mission — "Making the World Playful", and showcase the profound impact of King's games and their creators on the world. King approached us to work in partnership to produce their new film. Crucially, the King team wanted this to be different to anything they’d worked on before. It needed to be so visually appealing that it would stop people in their tracks.
At a glance
#00B67D — King Teal
Armed with data from King’s Consumer & Player Insights team, we set out to incorporate 5 different locations in our film. But, with a set budget and short timeline pre-launch, we knew that extensive travel wouldn’t be possible. We opted for technology usually found in major film production (virtual production is used on major feature films like Star Wars), and rarely used in the world of employer branding.
Our virtual production combined physical sets with bespoke detailed virtual assets – this allowed us to bring locations like Japan and India to life remotely. The ability to produce realistic lighting at the click of a button meant we could customise the weather and time-of-day without relying on exterior conditions.
Global locations
Kingsters in the film
Impressions on socials
Crushing the production
The concept of our film was that each time a player enjoys a King game, their lives burst into contagious colour they share with others. Accurately creating this effect was a challenge and no matter what, we couldn’t get it right.
“Maybe the King-energy isn’t a colour” we thought to ourselves.
We were right. It’s not. It’s a ripple which spreads through the miserable and the grey, leaving a brighter world in its path.
With that in mind, our Creative Director instructed the team to make it more… “Wobbly.” After more experimentation with mask transitions, heat distortion and 2.5D; we landed on a bespoke refractive wave transition, which appears each time a game is played. It perfectly demonstrates how King breathes colour into the world.
We integrated practical on-set lighting changes to sit alongside the projection mapped digital liquid – with each of these lights using King’s core colour palette.
We desaturated the environments around our main characters. This enhanced the effect and created further contrast when they started playing the King games. Our vision was to bring contrast between the dreary streets of Berlin and the playful world of King. Without the guarantee of rain (thanks, U.K) we devised a creative solution that didn’t break the bank.
Our DOP decided to craft his own rain machine from a hose pipe and drill. We wet the floors and windows, and used a heavy backlight to ease the enhancement in post-production. We layered 2D rain assets that we shot against a black background over the top – playing with curves and opacity to make the digital rain look as real as possible, and merge seamlessly with our ‘real’ rain.
King wanted a sub-2 minute video, but quick cuts between scenes felt confusing. Instead, we filmed a range of transitions. A German puddle portaled us to a cup of coffee in the US, and a dropped plushie in Japan landed us in the U.K. This, paired with bold typeface, ensured viewers had a ticket on our world tour – following the journey every step of the way.
We wanted to end up at “The Kingdom,” King’s London HQ, but this felt too abrupt a conclusion. So, we added a transition combining the Earth with an iconic Candy Crush piece to take Making the World Playful to a new level. Showing how the bursts of colour we’d seen throughout could combine to cover the world in joy was the perfect visual to wrap on.
