Unlocking a Secret Level with BUCK's Daniel Oeffinger

By Chandler Atton, Editor & Senior Writer for The Howler

Up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A

The video game industry attracts a particularly analytical kind of people; the sort who understand exactly what the above code signifies without requiring additional context (and for the uninitiated, it's a classic cheat command used in many retro video games.)

Amazon Prime’s Secret Level is all about celebrating not only this culture, but also some of the most remarkable titles and franchises to emerge from it. So it’s only fitting that the ones behind the adult-animated anthology’s opening animations and title cards would be BUCK – a company well-versed in video game advertising, with work under its belt from industry giants such as Electronic Arts, MiHoYo, and Riot Games. Oh, and did we mention they’ve recently released their own video game, too?

The Howler reached out to BUCK's Group Creative Director, Daniel Oeffinger, to crack the code behind Secret Level's mysterious transitions, as well as achieve a bit more insight toward the whole project. Check it out!

How did this opportunity arise? Has working on Secret Level differed from BUCK's other projects for the gaming industry?

Daniel: After partnering with Blur Studio on an episode of their hit Netflix show LOVE, DEATH + ROBOTS, we were invited to pitch our vision for Secret Level’s opening title sequence and logo. As we worked on the project and saw the initial press coming through, we knew it was going to be big. For example, Collider called “Secret Level,” “one of Prime's most ambitious projects ever.”

BUCK has done a range of work in the gaming industry over the years - we’ve worked with game publishers big and small on branding and campaigns. Some of our recent favorites include the identity system and trailers for the new VR game Batman: Arkham Shadow, an action-packed animated film for beloved RPG Genshin Impact, and for Riot Games, a Lunar New Year celebration that brings together the worlds and characters of three epic titles: League of Legends, Wild Rift, and Teamfight Tactics.

We also have our own Games studio within BUCK and have created and published our first game, Let’s! Revolution! to rave reviews. We’re working on another game right now. Watch this space!

Are you and/or your team members gamers, too? What prior experience did you have with the IPs and franchises represented in Secret Level?

Daniel: We were either all or nothing! Folks on the team either love games or had almost zero experience with them. We encouraged some ‘research,’ and the more games-savvy crew provided breakdowns on the types of game mechanics that could inform moments in the opening sequence.

For me personally, games have been a big part of my life since I was a kid. Shareware RPGs on my dad’s Macintosh II, old point-and-click games, lots of games where secrets were woven into the world and you just had to find them — no internet guides. I’ve played about a quarter of the franchises in Secret Level and was familiar with the rest.

Do you find that what engages gamers is different from what pleases other audiences? How does this influence your style of direction when working on a show like Secret Level?

Daniel: I think we had to assume that half of the audience would be rabid fans of one franchise or another, and the other half would be coming into the series with less experience. We did want this to feel ‘for gamers by gamers,’ but we were conscious of not wanting the opening titles to be just a big inside joke. Our goal was for the titles to feel authentic to the in-crowd, but intriguing for first-time callers.

Secret Level's opening sequences are as evocative as they are mysterious. How did the concept come about? What emotions were you trying to convey? What was your brief for this project? 

Daniel: Firstly, let me introduce you to Secret Level if you haven’t heard about it yet! Secret Level is a new adult-animated anthology series featuring original stories set within the worlds of some of the world’s most beloved video games. From the creative minds behind LOVE, DEATH + ROBOTS, each of the episodes celebrates games and gamers. Secret Level is created by and executive produced by Tim Miller. Dave Wilson serves as executive producer and supervising director.

Dave and the Blur crew came to us with a challenge: to create a bold and graphic title sequence that could represent the thrill of finding something hidden, celebrate gaming across the eras, and be a palate cleanser that would transcend any one genre. It needed to bind all of the universes represented in the show.

We pitched a concept of a quest for hidden knowledge, a graphic adventure through eras and genres of games. We would keep visuals very simple and reduced, a single protagonist that evolves from pixel to cube to sphere, but use the mechanics of games to show the journey: pong paddles, brick breaking, opening a locked door, finding a super rare treasure chest. We wanted to progress from simple to complex and show a progression of genre that felt more evocative than specific.

We brought our thematic cube world into the episode openers, creating six genre titles to represent gaming genres: Player Vs. Player, Platformer, Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Mech Action, and Fighting.

It wouldn't be a BUCK production if there weren't some easter eggs in these brief sequences. Could you tell me some of those details that you're most proud of, which viewers may have missed?

Daniel: The show’s title refers to the secret levels only accessed by the players willing to take risks, dig deeper, and work to unlock all the rewards a game has to offer.

We knew the show series would be getting much more into the franchise-specific Easter eggs, so we wanted the opening titles to be more evocative of that mystery.

When developing a brand logotype for the show, we wanted to create something impactful and unifying. The “E” became a central part of the show’s branding, with its three horizontal lines separated out to represent the levels. This subtly encapsulates the show's central theme and becomes an anchoring conceptual mechanism within which our titles’ world could be contained.

How long did the project take to complete? Were Secret Level's title cards made with knowledge of how their respective IPs would be portrayed in the show? 

Daniel: The project took approximately three months. Although we did know of the planned IPs that would be featured on the show, we developed the titles without watching any of the full episodes. Being an anthology series, "Secret Level" features high-end CG that is stylistically and narratively diverse in each episode. We needed the titles to feel like a way to unify the show's many universes rather than represent any specific one of them.

Did BUCK utilize any forms of generative AI when creating Secret Level's introduction and/or title cards? If so, what techniques were used?

Daniel: Although we’ve been finding ways to cleverly and responsibly use AI at different stages of production, this one is all hand-crafted, old school! Lots of blood, sweat, and tears in each little pixel.

Credits:

Executive Creative Director: Ben Langsfeld

Executive Producer: Luisa Murray, Andrew Chan Gladstone

Group Creative Director: Daniel Oeffinger

Creative Director: Joyce N. Ho

Animation Lead: David Hobizal

3D Supervisor: Hogan Williams

Associate Producer: Cody O'Neill

Storyboard: Yukyung Lee, Hannah Sun, Joyce N. Ho, Daniel Oeffinger

Design: Yukyung Lee, Hannah Sun, Jesseter Wang, Joyce N. Ho, Daniel Oeffinger

2D Animation & Compositing: David Hobizal, Hannah Sun, Joyce N. Ho

3D Animation: David Hobizal, Hannah Sun, Jesseter Wang, Hogan Williams, Daniel Oeffinger

Additional 2D Animation: Ricardo Mendes

Design Exploratory: Dayday, Gunnar Pettersson