There's No Holding the Rising Stars Back in Epic FIFA 21 Spot with Legendary Eric Cantona

MPC has partnered with Riff Raff to remotely deliver EA SPORTS’ new star-studded FIFA 21 launch film. The film features four football legends: Kylian Mbappe, Erling Haaland, Trent Alexander-Arnold and Joao Felix. 

The global marketing campaign aims to show homage to football's new young superstars, delving into each player’s personal story, their upbringing and their love for the clubs that they call home. A personal story of football and passion all set to the music track ‘We Made Away’ by Bobby Sessions. 

Director, Keane Pearce Shaw from Riff Raff Films and the MPC design team worked in close collaboration to develop and create a style that could act as the gel that helps tell a story combined of real world and gameplay components. Art Directed by Donal O’Keeffe, and co-lead by Senior designer Paul Hunt, MPC’s design team also teamed up with the collage artist Jazz Grant to help create a mixture of old school analogue collages alongside a more modern ‘digital style’ of animation. 

Donal O’Keeffe, art director at MPC says: “Each player was given a camera and was tasked to provide self-shot footage taken from the comfort of their own homes and surroundings... However, for this film each footballer was given a collection of old and new camera types, which meant that the film automatically feels very warm and personal, like we’re getting a rare glimpse into our football heroes lives, their thoughts and aspirations.” 

Donal adds: “Keane wanted to develop two separate but complimenting aesthetic styles for these films... the handmade analogue style from artist Jazz Grant and our own digital collage animations. Our task at MPC was to develop and create a visual style that bridged the gap between the two and to evoke a real sense of time and personality in our graphics. We also needed to consider and incorporate the more contemporary aesthetic world of EA’s FIFA 2020. The job is really a designer’s dream... a project that combined a mixture of styles with elements of cell animation, scanned textures, strong typographic compositions and subtle animation. The kind of project that brings you back to the more purest designer qualities and it's a style you can’t fake, it takes time and every frame needs to be highly considered. The fact that we did it well is a real testament to MPC’s design department.” 

On leading the team and developing the style, Paul Hunt, senior designer at MPC says: “Keane always knew he wanted a handmade archive quality but he also wanted another style so when we discussed the brief he stepped back and gave us the trust and freedom to establish the secondary design aesthetic which was fantastic. Once we established the look the team quickly took to creating 19 bespoke graphic vignettes for the main film. Along the way we had to develop other looks to complement moments where the digital collage didn't quite fit.”. 

Paul concludes: “Despite Covid-19 and all the restrictions that come with working remotely we managed to make this project run smoothly. We communicated internally on a daily basis and frequently with the director. We reviewed work a lot more than we would normally do in the studio and although we’re all miles apart the collaboration and teamwork was fun and effortless.” 

FIFA 21 adds to MPC’s portfolio within gaming that includes the likes of Call of Duty, Assassin's Creed, Ghost Recon, Minecraft, Candy Crush and PlayStation.