PandaPanther husband and wife duo Jonathan Garin and Naomi Nishimura, in conjunction with 72andSunny, directed a 2:00 minute promo spot for Activision's new entertainment property "Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure," which was released on Oct. 16th in North America.
72andSunny turned to PandaPanther and gave the directors a chance to showcase their creativity and skills. They quickly scaled up, assembling an all-star team of 40+ artists to work over a three-month period. Everything, from the overall flow to the choreography of the battle scenes to how the two characters were sitting in the opening scene, was the product of the close collaboration between Garin and Nishimura, 72andSunny, and Activision.
"We had to make sure this made sense to people - that they understood what was happening, who the bad guy was, and what the conflict was," said Garin. "72andSunny has always been consistent in making sure that their animation pieces makes sense and flow right. Activision, for their part, does a lot of this sort of character animation, so they are looking at what we give them with far more scrutiny than most big companies would."
In addition to the story, PandaPanther had to adapt the on screen look and feel of the characters - which initially were more suitable for the game consoles on which they had lived - to the more personal world of cinema. "When we started the project, the characters were in a very videogame-like state," noted Garin. "Our largest initial task was polishing the characters so that they fit into the more epic, cinematic world that we were creating, which was more realistic, with more details."
The Skylander project follows work that PandaPanther had previously done with 72andSunny for Zune. "We have a great relationship with 72andSunny and are excited to partner again with them on Skylanders Spyro's Adventure," noted Nishimura. "We had an awesome relationship with the agency throughout. Whenever they suggested a change or anything else, it really did make things better.