Blur Studio's Jeff Fowler Breathes Life Into The Skylander's Trap Team

The characters and world of Skylanders received the Blur Studio treatment in two new 30 second commercials produced by critically-acclaimed ad agency 72andSunny for Activision. With CG sequences helmed by Blur's Oscar-nominated director Jeff Fowler, "Inside the Trap" and "Trapping Kaos" feature an exciting new visual scope to bring Blur's special brand of high-octane storytelling to the imaginative world of Skylanders.

Noted 72andSunny Creative Director Tim Wolfe, “Both Blur and 72andSunny are built around collaborative cultures so we were all quick to jump in together, start laughing and shape where we wanted the project to go from the outset. It made for amazing sessions where everyone had a voice, egos were left at the door and we were all only interested in making the best video humanly possible.”

“Working with a tough little veggie warrior and a powerful super-dwarf armed with TraptaniumTM-infused hammers spurred our creative energy to create something like none other. We had a blast bringing a little mayhem to the world of Skylanders where we built a village and staged a cinematic battle scene between Gulper and Food Fight,” explained Fowler.

Added freelance Creative Director Michael Bryce, “The Skylanders brand is built on the idea of ‘bringing toys to life.’ Working with Blur gave us an entirely new way to look at the characters and what they were capable of.” 

Familiar with Blur's 20-year experience in high-end CG entertainment, 72andSunny enlisted the studio to bring their cinematic chops to the enormously popular franchise’s CG characters and environments for this new campaign. Fowler and his team of 30 artists completed CG material for both spots in less than two months. 

“The level of visual detail and character development Blur brought to the project was incredible. They took an already rich and fun world of Skylanders and turned up the volume helping us make something truly unique and ground-breaking for the category,” said Wolfe. 

“We were excited to get the call from 72andSunny. They're responsible for some of the most iconic and memorable commercial campaigns in recent years and we're big fans,” Fowler concluded.

Full Credits

Blur

CG/Animation Director: Jeff Fowler

Creative Director: Tim Miller

CG Supervisor: Chris Bedrosian

Animation Supervisor: Hubert Daniel

FX Supervisor: Brandon Riza

Producer: Laura Pepper

Executive Producer: Al Shier

Layout Supervisor: Aristomenis Tsirbas

Layout: Hubert Daniel, Isaac Fernandez

Character Modeling Lead: Jesse Sandifer

Character Modeling: Hasan Bajramovic, Daniel Garcia, Victor Hugo, Daniel Kho, Clay Osmus, Gun Park, Juan Solis, Tom Tran, David Munoz Velazquez

Rigging Supervisor: Jeremie Passerin

Rigging Lead: Joshua Cogswell

Rigging TD: Tyler Fox

Rigging: Ben Durkin, Tyler Fox, Gerry Hsu, Daniel Kole, Travis Miller, Michael Swann

Animation: Ben Cinelli, Isaac Fernandez, Yvain Gnabro, Jason Hendrich, Oliver Parcasio

Hair and Cloth: Justin Callanan, Adam Dorner, Jon Jordan, Mark Lipsmeyer, Luis Lopez, James Marcus, Lennon Montejo, Yury Sakovich, Danny Young 

Environment Modeling: Simon Blanc, Eric Durante, Jinho Jang, Ramon Lopez

Lighting and Compositing Lead: Simon Blanc

Lighting and Compositing: Eric Durante, Jason Madsen

FX: Joe Coleman, Sasmit Ranadive, John Schratz

Technical and QC: Joshua Cogswell, Tyler Fox, Jon Jordan, Luis Lopez, Jeremie Passerin, Danny Young

Concept Design: Sean McNally, Joshua Shaw, Kyle Shockley, Chuck Wojtkiewicz, Tom Zhao

Production Coordinator: Chris Youngless

Production Assistant: Amanda Powell

Pipeline Supervisor: Jeffrey Beeland

Pipeline: Brendan Abel, Mike Hendricks, Stephen Lu

Programming and Systems Administration: Duane Powell, Jeremy Donahue, Paul Huang, Matt Newell, Perry Randall

Activision

Chief Executive Officer: Eric Hirshberg

Chief Marketing Officer: Tim Ellis

SVP of Consumer Marketing: John Coyne

Director of Consumer Marketing: Hjalmar Hedman

Manager, Consumer Marketing: Eneida Mejia 

72andSunny

Partner, Chief Creative Officer: Glenn Cole

Executive Creative Director: Frank Hahn 

Creative Director/Writer: Tim Wolfe

Creative Director/Designer: Peter Vattanatham

Creative Director: Michael Bryce

Senior Designer: Travis Swingler

Junior Writer: Taylor Black

Junior Designer: MyTran Dang

Director of Film Production: Sam Baerwald

Executive Producer: Dan Ruth

Film Producer: Kara Fromhart

Group Director Business Affairs: Amy Jacobsen

Business Affairs Manager: Kelly Ventrelli

Business Affairs Coordinator: Amy Shah

Group Brand Director: Mike Parseghian

Senior Brand Manager: Torie Gleicher

Brand Manager: Tashi Oszvald

Brand Coordinator: Erica Goitia

Group Strategy Director: Bryan Smith

Strategy Director: John Graham

Senior Strategist: Daniel Teng 

72 Studio

Chief Production Officer: Tom Dunlap

Director: Benjamin Davis 

Content Producer: Jonny Edwards

Line Producer: Dina Oberley 

Editor: Jason Lewis

Editor: Billy Sacdalan 

Post Producer: Benjamin Bragg

MPC

Executive Producer: Elexis Stern 

Producer: Abisayo Adejare 

VFX Artist: Benjamin Davis

Music & Sound Design

Human Worldwide 

Composer: Gareth Williams 

Producer: Jonathan Sandford

Sound Mix Lime Studios 

Executive Producer: Susie Boyajan

Engineer: Zac Fisher