Watts Shows its Creativity Through the Use of Animation and 3D
Xbox Family Settings
Xbox came to Watts to create a video meant to drive awareness and usage of the new Xbox Family Settings app, while characterizing gaming as an activity the whole family can enjoy. The video targets a global audience of parents with kids age 7+ who are new console buyers eager for a robust and user-friendly app experience.
BUSINESS CHALLENGE
Xbox strives to create a gaming environment that’s fun and safe for all and the Xbox Family Settings app helps to do just that. What better way to showcase that than with a video that positions gaming as an experience that people of all ages and backgrounds can enjoy responsibly within the boundaries they set using the app.
CREATIVE CHALLENGE
Creating content that’s relatable across cultures, while ensuring that a diverse cross-section of people and family structures are represented is complex, and it’s just the sort of challenge we welcome. Not to mention that it was a dream come true for our creative team.
From a technical standpoint, the challenge was to create these characters from scratch (using the existing avatar system as a jumping off point) and build high quality models and rigs that could convey the motion and emotion we wanted to capture. In other words, the trick was to create a style that’s familiar to the Xbox user, while making it our own.
OUR SOLUTION | CREATIVE PROCESS
To capture an all-inclusive audience that represents the diversity of Xbox’s players, we created four distinct households that are far from the one size fits all family unit. To illustrate the app experience in unexpected ways, we crafted scenes where imagination and whimsy meet tangible product attributes and functionality. Finally, we chose to create culturally non-specific and minimal home environments that appeal to a global audience and keep the focus on the unique character interactions. This approach also allows for characters to be swapped in and out, rather than being tied to a particular aesthetic. Most importantly, we made a fun and informative video and had a blast while doing it.
