Director Olivier Staphylas (Kung Fu Panda, How to Train Your Dragon) teams with choreographer Nicky Andersen (BTS, Taylor Swift) and a serious character design/animation crew to launch Simon Fuller’s virtual band The Meeps.

Olivier Staphylas: “Simon Fuller [creator of the Idols TV format] had this wonderful concept to create a virtual band of stuffed animals. My company 2 OAKS Productions became the creative hub for the project, and we started looking for the right artists to start the character design and vis-dev.

“I reached out to one of my favorite illustrators, Wiebke Rauers to design our characters. I wanted characters that were both adorable and quirky, and Wiebke totally nailed it. We then brought in Avner Geller as our production designer who was tremendous in helping me put out my vision for the project.

“We started working with my friend Leo Sanchez and his studio who did the modeling/rigging/look dev of our characters, while my team of animators and I at 2 OAKS were doing the animation dev, rigging feedback, and providing deformations drawovers.
 

“Working so closely with the choreographer allowed me to choose the animation moments for each section of the music. This resulted in an animatic that was pretty tight and became the guideline for the rest of the production.”

 
“We approached the animation dev and the rigs of each character in the same way I approached the character creation of a feature film – I wanted to create rigs that were very appealing and could do anything (dancing is hard), and to make sure we were creating high-end characters that are feature film-ready.

“I collaborated with Simon Fuller on the creation of the original song and the very talented choreographer Nicki Andersen on the dance routine who understood the vision beautifully.

“Working so closely with the choreographer allowed me to choose the animation moments for each section of the music. This resulted in an animatic that was pretty tight and became the guideline for the rest of the production.

“We then selected partners to execute the production of the work. Brazen was chosen for the production services (everything but animation) and Agora was selected for animation services. The teams at Brazen and Agora collaborated closely to make it all happen and I couldn’t be prouder of the results.”
 
 

 
Director: Olivier Staphylas
Creator: Simon Fuller
Producer: Michelle Jurado Staphylas, Varunee Santa, Kim Fuller, Krit Ngaosri
EP: Simon Fuller, Jwanwat Ahriyavraromp, Splash Entertainment LLC, Liz Young, Mike Young, Steven Rosen, Bhakbhume Tanta-Nanta, Ekkasitha Chalermrattawongz

Pre-Production: 2 OAKS Productions
Production Designer: Avner Geller
Editor: Olivier Staphylas
Associate Producer: Sumit Verma
Production Coordinator: Nila Sudheendran
Character Designer: Wiebke Rauers
Additional Character Designers: Jorge Capote, Axel de Afforest
Visual Development Artist: Thomas Lépine, Chloé Dumoulin
Storyboard Artist: Gabriele Pennacchioli, Erik Lechtenberg Moroni
Animators: Ketan Shankar Adhikari, TungChing Neil Chia, Nicolas Chauvelot

3D Character Creation: Leo Sanchez Studio
CG Character Supervision: Leo Sánchez Barbosa
Producer: Manolo Sanchez
Production Supervisor: Lourdes Villagómez
Additional Design: Franco Spagnolo, Pierre Perifel
Modeler: Juan Solís, Javier Pedreño, Jose Augusto Rodríguez, Daniel Moreno, David Díaz , Luis Gómez Guzmán
Rigging Supervisor: Miquel Campos
Character TD: Inés Jiménez, María Lodeiro, Juan Muñoz, Ignacio Santalla, Iván Luque
Additional Animation: Raphael Sousa
Grooming: Aritz Berakoetxea, Jonatan Catalan
Surfacing: Patricia Moya Cloth: Diego Muñoz Lighting: Eva Mateo, Jorge Martin
3D Tech Support: José María Tejeda
Production Assistant/Character TD: Ellis Rivera

Animation: Agora Studios
Head of Animation: Jacob Gardner
Lead Animator: Raphaela Burdis
Production Manager: Maria Casas Andreu
Animator: Nathan Brown, Fernando García-Sotoca, TungChing Neil Chia, Stephen Orsini, Eric Drobile, Cesc Pujol Font, Alistair Hopkins, Renato Sena, Fraser Littlejohn, Stalin Ranjith Selvanayagam

Production Studio: Brazen Animation
VP of Production: Marc Matthews
EP: Greg Lyons
Production Manager: Zhenya Kolpakova, Andrew Gotham
Digital Supervisor: Connon Carey
Associate Creative Director: Greg Rizzi
Modeling Supervisor: Felipe Bassi
Technical Supervisor: Josh Carey
Lighting Lead: Jessica Hogan, Ethan Crossno
Editor: Ahren Shaw
Production Coordinator: Corrine Harrington, Adam Uthoff
Production Assistant: Nic Diaz
Additional Crew: Fazil Ahmed, Emily Greenwood, Meghann Robison, Jere Baker, Zane Hedges, Tarkan Sarim, Evan Balster, Doug Hogan, Alessio Sciancalepore, Elizabeth Boyd, Megan Hopper, Nick Shirsty, Jay Chen, Salvador López Jurado, Stim Studio, Jee-Sung Cho, Casey Kreft, Kevin Taylor, Abbie Collins, Sean Langford, Khoi Tran, Dennis Cornetta, Josh Lee, Glen Victor, Quimet Delgado, Will Leonard, Ognjen Vukovic, Josh Delarosa, Abby Leenhouts, Shane Wapskineh, Erin Estep, Scott McCullough, Kenneth Weide, Bryce Gattis, Ashish Nimat, Katie Woods, Marisol Gladding, Chris Osbrink, Sky Young, Felipe Gonzalez, Kunal Parui, Daniel Zinck, Meghan Grayson, Nick Prange

Post Production: Titra Studios
Color Grading: Grégoire Lesturgie
Final Mix: Guillaume Tibi
Mastering: Antony Block, Benoit Lubineau and David Borens
Post Production Manager: François-Pascal Iweins

Music: Emile Ghantous, Lance Tolbert, Sameer Agrawal, Keith Hetrick
Mix: Rob Chiarelli
Master: Michelle Mancini
Music Supervisor: Iain Pirie

Choreographer: Nicky Andersen
Assistant Choreographer: Alfa Bebber

Cast
Axel: Lamar Morris
Martin: Joshua Jackson

Special thanks: Peerapol Treelertkul, Preawpan Soonsinbhai, Phenprakay Ratchanikul, Maetus Chinnapha, Patcha Arpawuttichai