“To mark this launch, our team wanted to create a show-stopping moment, so it felt fitting to have Hollywood icons face off against social media stars in a fun way, showing that life really is more fun when you’re with a squad,” says Ilkka Paananen, CEO of Supercell.

Are we having fun, yet? Indeed.

“The idea was inspired by a Johnny Cash fan film from a few years ago, where fans messed about with individual frames,” Waste associate creative director Benny Bentham tells Muse. “That was our jumping-off point to creating something, a blank canvas, where people could share their creativity and individuality—and have fun while doing it.”

Here are some of the original line drawings:

“We gave them complete creative freedom,” says Harry Fairfax-Jones, Waste’s business director for gaming. “They could do anything they wanted with the frames, and they really went for it. The process was simple: We dropped the frames in four batches on Reddit. The community chose a frame to color in. They then shared it back on Reddit. Once all the frames were done, we chose the very best and stitched it back together into the final film, prompting them to get involved with real in-game rewards and to get their name in the credits.”

This particular slice of user-generated mayhem made sense because “fan art is massive in the Brawl Stars community—they just can’t stop making awesome stuff,” says Bentham. “Brawlimation was the perfect way to bring them together to create something truly epic.” 

“The most important thing for us was to make sure there was as much variety in the frames as possible, to reflect the individuality of the community—and we knew it would add to the aesthetic of the final film,” he says. “We also dropped the rate down to 12 frames per second, so it didn’t fly by in a blur but allowed people to catch a glimpse of each frame as it played out.” 

Oh no, those images didn’t fly by at all. Excuse us while we peel our eyeballs off the wall. 

“The entire story was crafted to be a frenetic montage of Brawler action,” explains motion director Alex Robinson. “Every single frame needed to be interesting for someone to color in—and that meant each and every Brawler in the film played an equal role. Each one performs a cool move, and each one passes the action to the next character.”