Call Of Duty: Black Ops 7

CLIENT

Activision

OVERVIEW

CREDITS

A few months after the release of Black Ops 6, Activision contacted Territory to create cinematics for Call of Duty 7. The look and feel was set to be completely different from the previous game, taking a more sci-fi approach with dystopian AI influences. At the time, I was away in New York working on Spielberg’s Disclosure Day, but returned during production to lead three load movies as part of a more 3D-heavy project.

A few months after the release of Black Ops 6, Activision contacted Territory to create cinematics for Call of Duty 7. The look and feel was set to be completely different from the previous game, taking a more sci-fi approach with dystopian AI influences. At the time, I was away in New York working on Spielberg’s Disclosure Day, but returned during production to lead three load movies as part of a more 3D-heavy project.

Tyrone Magnusen — Senior Motion Designer

Ryan Hays — Creative Director

Liam Proniewicz — Art Director

Josh Thorpe - 3D Lead

Daniel Wyatt - 3D Lead

Harriet Craig — Lead Producer

Francise Long — Motion Designer

Aaron Stelfox — Senior Motion Designer

SHOWREEL

PROJECT OVERVIEW

Towards the latter stages of the cinematics, the Territory team and I began shifting our focus to the intro load movie. These sequences introduced the main characters and helped set the tone for the game. With our deconstructed visual style already well established, this was an opportunity to push it further, experiment with new ideas and develop fresh assets for the title sequence.

We carried over the same hands-on, tactile approach from earlier stages, creating textures by hand using arts and crafts tools before scanning them in to build our own custom library. Fingerprints, smudges, copier misalignments, scratches, paint splats and paper grain all became part of the visual language. These elements helped give the intro its gritty, grounded aesthetic, maintaining a consistent look throughout.

We began with clean, graphic compositions before gradually breaking them down through misalignment, distortion, layering and imperfections. This gave the visuals a sense of weight and history, making them feel like a natural part of the game's world.

The final sequence above features a selection of work I contributed to, combining 2D and 3D workflows depending on the needs of each shot.

Below is a behind the scenes video put together by a good friend and colleague at Territory Studio, offering a closer look at the creative process and development of the visuals.

Further down, I've included a selection of individual shots that I personally created and led, highlighting my contributions to the sequence in more detail.

For the Black Ops 6 intro, we built a hand-made visual language from scanned textures, rough type, and layered imperfections.

CAPRICORN LOAD


This was the first load movie I worked on when joining the project. A look and feel had already been developed that leaned towards an iridescent sci-fi aesthetic. The game was set in a futuristic world with a focus on AI overlords. Ironically, no AI was used in the making of these films.

I started by developing styleframes based on a 3D model of a quantum computer that the client had sent over. The model was dense, to say the least, and I spent a lot of time deconstructing it to extract the elements we needed.

From there, I created all the textures and developed the final look and feel you see in the video, using a combination of Cinema 4D, Illustrator and After Effects.

CONCEPT STYLEFRAMES

ENDGAME LOAD


This Endgame load was actually the last one I worked on and presented some difficult challenges. With time running out and limited resources, I was left to pick up rushed and unfinished files and develop them significantly. This meant, to a large extent, rebuilding much of the work from scratch.

This shot of Alden Dorne alone took considerable time to get right, as I had to recreate many of the 3D particle passes alongside designing the surrounding 2D UI that follows the camera movement. I was responsible for all aspects of this shot, and below are the other shots I created within this load.

SHOTS

LIBRA LOAD

This was the second load I worked on and one I had the opportunity to lead from the beginning. Working alongside two extremely talented freelancers, we developed the story based on the script, discussing ideas for transitions between shots in detail, with plenty of back and forth throughout the process.

Overall, the narrative was fairly simple, but the film flows together really well without the need for too many filler shots. Below are the individual shots I created. I was also responsible for putting together the final edit and developing the transitions between each shot.

TEXTURE

Some of the textures we created came from experimenting with Letraset, paint, scanned acetate and various other arts and crafts techniques. These hands-on processes allowed us to explore different materials and build a library of unique textures to incorporate into the visuals.

TEXTURE

Some of the textures we created came from experimenting with Letraset, paint, scanned acetate and various other arts and crafts techniques. These hands-on processes allowed us to explore different materials and build a library of unique textures to incorporate into the visuals.

More works

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Call Of Duty: Black Ops 7

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2024

Disclosure Day

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2024

Black Ops 6: Zombies

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2024

Call Of Duty: Black Ops 7

Game

2024

Disclosure Day

Film

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