Fred & Eric partnered with our friends at Agora to bring dentsu’s annual northstar awards to life. Titled The Land of the Never Before, the global online event transformed a traditional awards ceremony into a richly illustrated immersive production. Creating a true celebration dentsu’s people and values.

Our Role

Agora's aim for this project was to move beyond a traditional awards show format and instead create an immersive experience for dentsu's audience. Their vision was grounded in a series of eight illustrated virtual kingdoms, each representing dentsu’s values, and awards categories. Our role had two distinct parts.

Inspired by the intricate illustrated kingdoms, we designed a suite of animated graphics. This included title screens, additional backgrounds, typography-based award screens and a graphics kit-of-parts. All designed to compliment the distinctive brand look.

The second part of our role was less traditional. Agora's vision was to bring the hosts out of a stage-based awards setting, and transport them into the fantastical illustrated kingdoms. Entering a 2.5D virtual production process where traditional animation and illustration combined with cutting-edge technology.

Virtual Production Process

Virtual production is a filmmaking technique that combines live-action with real-time digital environments using large LED walls. It allows filmmakers to visualize, light and capture fully rendered backgrounds on set in real-time.

Utilizing this process, we worked closely with Agora and the Disguise technical team. The timeline was tight and the production complex, with multiple partners collaborating across design, animation and real-time technology.

Our job was to focus on bringing the worlds to life with animation while preserving the charm and character of the original illustrations. Rebuilding the illustrations as layered scenes, adding depth and movement. Outputting our animations for use in a real-time workflow powered by Notch.

There was a fine balance of expressive storytelling and the technical requirements of virtual production. Animating the illustrated worlds for a non-traditional output meant rethinking how the layers would behave on stage.

By separating the artwork into multiple planes, the environments could be interpreted as 2.5D spaces within the LED stage. Disguise's technology created the illusion of depth by using our layered animated plates and augmented reality elements.

When viewed through tracked cameras, the scenes behaved like fully dimensional worlds; responding to live camera movement within the studio. Allowing presenters to appear naturally within each of the richly imaginative worlds.

Shoot complete, the final show came together as our graphic elements unified the ensemble. The last creative touch was a collaboration with composer Lee Cooper, whose bespoke sound design and original score for the ceremony brought the audiovisual experience to life.

What a Result!

Removing the presenters from a standard awards show stage setting, elevated the ceremony and immediately set it apart. This extraordinary internal event streamed globally across multiple time zones, reaching over 6,000 employee views worldwide.

By applying innovative production technology in a B2E (business-to-employee) context, the project demonstrated how creative storytelling and precise technical execution can deliver powerful impact, not just for external audiences but within global organisations. The awards show harnessed state-of-the-art virtual production, creating a joyful, optimistic and uniquely branded experience.

It was a fast-moving, collaborative project and exactly the kind of challenge we love; blending craft and technology to build animated worlds at scale.