In this new entry of the Kung Fu Panda saga (released theatrically March 2024), Po is back must train a new warrior when he’s chosen to become the spiritual leader of the Valley of Peace. However, when a powerful shape-shifting sorceress sets her eyes on his Staff of Wisdom, he suddenly realizes he’s going to need some help.
I worked with DreamWorks Animation, the Films team, Art Machine, and Trailer Park to help design branded GFX for spots, digital and static OOH placements, and Art Direct motion cinemagraphs. We leveraged a combination of the Kung Fu Panda 4 AE GFX toolkit, as well as pre-built GFX renders (on alpha) that DreamWorks always provides for home entertainment and streaming.
Skills Involved
Art Direction, Motion Graphics Design, OOH Static Design
Agencies / Studios
Art Machine/Trailer Park, Dreamworks Animation, Universal Pictures, Peacock Creative (Internal)
When
June 2024
Spots and Cutdowns
The below :15 second spot titled “Legend” is a pretty straight forward edit. To draw influence from the IP, we were originally going to add custom illustrated “streaks” across the peacock logo and/or background, but that was later reserved for multi-title Peacock branded spots.
Title
Kung Fu Panda 4 – Xfinity Spot
Tools
After Effects, Pre-Rendered Toolkit
Summary
The :30 second spot (with an Xfinity promotion end card) uses a rotoscoped “Po” as he flies out from behind the main title. There’s also added custom internal Peacock messaging in the style of the IP. When it comes to versioning, the challenge with these Xfinity promotions is shortening the edit enough to fit roughly :03 seconds of VO and graphics.
Key Art
HERO ART
CINEMAGRAPH
OUT OF HOME
Urban Panels
I had a lot of fun Art Directing Art Machine to help create vertical animated OOH placements for bus shelters in West Hollywood (posted above), as well as Urban Panels in NYC. We used a scene pull to combine footage as Po breaks the frame and reveals the hero art. Neither placement has audio so we wanted it to be visually engaging as a passerby.
OUT OF HOME
Sunset Boulevard
Peacock generally occupies two neighboring static high traffic OOH billboards on Sunset Boulevard – this board being one of them. The challenge for P1 films that have already had a promotional window is to bring immediate attention to the new streaming opportunity.
OUT OF HOME
Sunset Boulevard
Peacock generally occupies two neighboring static high traffic OOH billboards on Sunset Boulevard – this board being one of them. The challenge for P1 films that have already had a promotional window is to bring immediate attention to the new streaming opportunity.