“To Infinity and Beyond”: Why Hulu and Disney+ Enlisted BIEN to Bring Iconic Lines to Life

Across the swathes of entertainment found on Hulu and Disney+, there’s no shortage of iconic lines of dialogue. From “a galaxy far, far away” to “Wakanda forever”, via prestige and comfort TV like Shōgun and Welcome to Wrexham, the combined forces of the two platforms offer up a feast of entertainment like no other. 

To promote the Hulu and Disney+ bundle, those memorable phrases were plucked from their original scripts and brought disarmingly to life across billboards in the biggest cities in the US. After all, when you’re dealing with some of the most celebrated quotes from the history of TV and cinema, sometimes less can truly be more. That’s why the minimalist billboards were adorned with nothing more than the lines accompanied by a delightful visual reference to the subject matter, thanks to the motion design maestros at BIEN. 

To reflect on the process behind the campaign, as well as how Hulu and Disney+, ahem, “let him cook”, LBB caught up with BIEN’s creative director and co-founder Hung Le. 

LBB> Hung, congrats on a great DOOH campaign! The words and imagery are all so iconic - do you have a favourite billboard of the bunch?

Hung> "Look for the bare necessities." was our favourite from a production standpoint. It reminds us of childhood memories. On top of that, we got to dive into the classic animation to find the dance moment and make it work. If you watch the movie, you will not find this specific dance sequence. We roto-ed and stitched a couple of shots together to make it work. We even added in extra details for Baloo the Bear, because his fingers were cut off at the top of the screen. 

Then, for the Hulu on Disney+ activation, we got to do some 3d cloth sim to animate the napkin. It's pretty much all of BIEN's capabilities in one asset.

LBB> The typography makes it feel as though we’re looking at the scripts themselves - was that an intentional choice?

Hung> BIEN was brought on as the production partner to execute the digital out-of-home (DOOH) campaign. The creative, including the script-like design for the type, came from the amazing in-house Disney+ Brand team.

LBB> Did the placement of some of these ads inform the content that was in each one?

Hung> Definitely. Perhaps the most intentional one is the JFK Tunnel, with two long screens. We considered traffic flow, attention span, and accessibility issues like flashes at that scale. 

LBB> Visually, the ads are minimalist - why do you think that was the right way to approach this campaign?

Hung> This is the brilliance of this campaign by the Disney+ team. In a sea of flashy visuals that dominates DOOH screens, especially in Times Square, the simple approach stands out.

LBB> We heard that the 3D spiders you made for the ads were particularly challenging - why was that?

Hung> This exemplifies how we went above and beyond for the client. Given the tight deadline, the Disney+ brand creative team did not mandate that we had to do a 3D spider, but we did anyway because, well, spiders are cool. 

Given the tight production timeline, we did not start from scratch. We got a rigged spider from Turbosquid and modified it to look like the spider in the key art. The real challenge was ensuring the spider worked in different aspect ratios, and maintained the layout of the original key art.

LBB> Spiders aside, what was the biggest challenge you encountered during the project, and how did you overcome it?

Hung> Managing and delivering 159 assets straight to the DOOH vendors was that challenge. Our senior producer, Alisha Kramer, really brought her triple-A game to this project. We maintain high-quality delivery at BIEN by implementing a multi-stage quality control (QC) process. That means the artist is responsible for QC-ing their work before passing it to the creative lead to QC and, finally, the producer. 

At each stage of quality control, each person with their unique expertise checks for issues they are most familiar with. For each large project, we come up with a "Things-to-QC" checklist, from disclaimers and spelling to codecs. We have found that having a checklist helps align everyone on the same mission. This is part of our inclusive design process.

LBB> Is there anything that you’d do differently if you had your time again?

Hung> We would have invested a bit more time in designing a workflow that reduces friction and lag time. Each project is unique, so we try to do a premortem to anticipate rather than react.

LBB> Finally, help our readers out - do you have any great recommendations on Hulu or Disney+? 

Hung> Just one question - When is 'Andor 2' coming out?! Because we would love to be the production partner to bring that campaign to life. Just saying.