Stake is a new entrant to the financial share-trading category in Australia. Its offering is different to the other big players in the market, allowing users to trade with the app on both the New York Stock Exchange as well as the ASX. For its launch, Bear Meets Eagle On Fire was briefed to make Stake appeal to an audience of young, ambitious investors.

The agency created The Takeover, a launch film set against the backdrop of a 1930s-style animated world of fat cats, piggy banks and old money. A hero character delivers a call-to-arms monologue as he journeys through the subway and the streets of the financial district until he breaks through to the top floor of one of the old institutions to take his seat at the boardroom table.

To create the ‘old money vs new money’ world, the team drew inspiration from the Max Fleischer school of animation and combined digital tools with conventional animation principles and techniques to achieve this aesthetic.

A significant amount of time was spent refining hand sketches before moving into the digital painting of background plates and finished characters. In the compositing phase, environments could be moved towards and past the camera through keyframe animation, but with the characters animated frame by frame. Lastly, tiny imperfections and grain were layered throughout to emulate the original cel animation style.

Credits:
Stake: The Takeover
Category: Animation
Entrant: Bear Meets Eagle On Fire
Creative Studio: Bear Meets Eagle On Fire
Founder & Chief Creative Officer: Micah Walker
Creative Director: Leslie Sharpe, Ian Williamson
Copywriter: Henry Kember
Senior Producer: Emma Wright
Managing Director: Toby Hussey
Animation Company: Augenblick Studios
Producers: Aaron Augenblick, Carrie Miller
Director: Devin Clark
Animation Director: Keith Stack
Background Design: Zartosht Soltani, Jeremy Jusay
Character Design: Pablo Hidalgo
Animators: Katie Wendt. Josh Pelch. Nichola Latzgo, Mark Pecoraro
Sound & Music: Rumble Studios
Sound Designer: Tone Aston
Executive Producer: Michael Gie
Composer: Kelly Mac
VO Artist: Black Chakra
Post Production: Blockhead VFX