We received a project brief from the Infinity Ward team that included a mood board and outlined upcoming content for this season. Some of the big motifs that needed to be covered were:

- The opening of Stadium
- The Shadow Company
- The main operator, Lurch
- Extra emphasis on BIG

We were given a large asset dump from an operator photoshoot with TacGas. The colours that were going to be used in-game this season were gold and black, with inky smoke. I discovered a cool way to replicate this inky smoke look: I inverted an image of fire, desaturated it, and changed the levels to get the desired look.

I started by exploring a few different compositions, backgrounds, and poses. The client picked a direction, which was Lurch in the open stadium with minimal smoke. I composited Lurch into the scene, and made the legal edits to his outfit (i.e. removing patterns, branding, the scope on his weapon etc).

Finally, the logo needed to be updated. The image inside the logo is a picture of the train that was added to the game this season. The treatment is different this season from other seasons. It is a combination of blending modes to replicate the gold look.

The whole process took about 4-5 weeks.

Once finalized, the files were sent off to our motion graphics team to animate for the official Season 5 trailer.