Adding the Flaunt Productions Touch to Mattel Classic MONSTER HIGH

At a time when our world feels more divided than ever, who would have thought we'd look towards monsters for acceptance? Mattel's MONSTER HIGH teaches us that there's more in the world to unite than divide.

For the TV special Welcome to Monster High, Mattel approached Flaunt Productions to produce a revamp of the MONSTER HIGH brand, telling a story fans of the series will love, while also adding a new twist.

The project represented a great opportunity for Flaunt Productions, enabling the team to flex its creative muscles across production, from script, storyboard and design to final delivery.

Mixing things up

Flaunt utilised a diverse range of artists for Monster High, with one overarching goal unifying its efforts-to refresh the brand while retaining that which made it stand out in the first place.

"Our aim was to create something targeted at 6-11 year old girls and give it a fresh, bold look at the same time," explains art director Jon Beeston. "Monster High is such a strong brand in the Mattel world, so we worked closely with Emily Kelly-Cabal, the art director at Mattel, to make sure we kept things on brand, while giving things a twist."

In order to achieve a unique feel, Flaunt delivered assets with the highest production values, using realistic materials and textures to give characters a tangible feel.

Flaunt also coined two new terms to fulfil the brief - everything contained within each frame was 'monsterfied' and 'wonkified'. The former involved adding monstrous elements to all of Flaunt's designs-cobwebs, skulls and bat wings all make an appearance.

As for the latter, a distinct shape language was introduced to the design process. MONSTER HIGH needed a playful, charming quality-or in other words, it needed to be 'wonkified'. This involved skewing the lines of objects throughout scenes, giving the world a strange, off-kilter feel.

Building character

Flaunt's roster of designers and illustrators worked hard to flesh out each characters' individual personalities when building them into workable CG models. They even turned to THE VOICE actors for inspiration, mimicking hand gestures and facial expressions from the booth and transplanting them into the animation witnessed on screen.

Shane Amsterdam, the creative force behind Welcome to Monster High, and Mattel's supervising director Jun Falkenstein, challenged Flaunt at every turn to deliver their most colourful work to date.

"We wanted to have moments of real heart and emotion," says director Stephen Donnelly. "These weren't just dolls; these were real, breathing characters that kids could get emotionally invested in."

Fashionista monsters

Fashion also plays a leading role in the MONSTER HIGH universe, something Mattel encouraged exploration around early in the production process: "We spoke to some fashion stylists to get valuable knowledge from the fashion world," says Richard Scott, executive producer on the project.

"We wanted to know not only what's hot and fashionable right now, but also what could be coming up further down the line. The biggest revelation for me was definitely 'pastel goths'. Never heard of that before!"

The fashion element plays into the MONSTER HIGH ethos-this is a place where students embrace and celebrate what makes them different. A mantra that's just as important at Flaunt...

"There was always a great energy in the team, everyone was excited to be working on this brand and everyone was excited about working on a movie, and that carried through to every department," says Andrew Pearce, Flaunt's executive producer.

"At the end of the day, we were creating animation and working for a toy company-the two most fun things in the world!"

To find out more about the making of Monster High, click here.

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