Bomper Studio has teamed up with Levi’s once again to work within the iconic world of Super Mario. 

The team at Bomper are huge Super Mario fans, so celebrating the legendary series in a way that resonates with nostalgic buyers, while keeping it fresh for a younger generation was a key consideration. The team took the fast-paced montage approach established in their work on Levi’s x Hello Kitty, and applied it to the world of Super Mario. The end result is a fun and energetic motion graphics film – utilising photography, 2D design assets, in-game footage – with high quality 3D work that really captures the energy of this iconic collab.

Our approach to the project was to create a big celebration piece that equally focuses on both brands. Initially, the team wanted to recreate the tee design of Mario hitting the Levi’s logo in full animation. This would be in full 3D, using game assets sourced from current Nintendo games and matching key animation reference to ensure that the way Mario looks and moves is fully on brand.

Bomper did some tests in C4D, building full 3D scenes with assets from later games, but giving them a classic Mario look to them. After a lot of discussion, we felt that to truly encapsulate both brands and stay true to their identities, we needed to make a montage sequence. Using After Effects, we brought together real-life photography stills from Levi’s photoshoot and integrated it with retro Super Mario imagery; animating 2D coins to spill out of some Levi jeans.

We decided against using too much CGI, to keep the focus on the brand identity of the older games, but we couldn’t resist animating a classic coin block hit in 3D (using C4D and Octane).