HQ Trivia cracked the holy grail of live mobile viewing. Each night, people tune-in on their phones, where a host asks 12 increasingly difficult questions. Those who answer all 12 correctly win or split a cash prize. As opposed to other media outlets where viewers can turn their focus away from their device or screen during an ad, viewers are far more engaged during HQ Trivia’s live shows with cash prizes.

In a world with an over-saturation of content and attention grabbing media, HQ Trivia is able to harness the undivided attention of over half a million people on mobile for over 20 minutes right before a film’s release. This understanding of the power HQ Trivia drove this partnership to promote The LEGO Movie 2: The Second Part.

The creative idea was to use real-time animation to have Scott Rogowsky asking HQ’s 12 questions per usual, but in the shape of a real-time, animated LEGO minifigure.

By being a live event, the promotion would be seen as off-the-cuff and fun; ultimately bringing viewers and fans of LEGO closer to the film. Ultimately, the objective was to surprise and delight players with a live animation first, attract as big an audience as possible and drive global viewers to go see The LEGO Movie 2: The Second Part on opening weekend.

The idea originated as an effort to harness the fervor surrounding the HQ app, particularly amidst The LEGO Movie 2: The Second Part’s core target audience and align these two brands as much as possible. And while HQ has partnered with films before, this marked a first, as it’s never before used an animated host to ask questions.

HQ Trivia creates meaningful memories for players, particularly those who play together. It’s the concept of shared moments that led Warner Bros. Pictures to partner with HQ and create an animation experience as big and memorable as possible. As part of the partnership, Warner Bros. Pictures was able to integrate into an entire episode of HQ Trivia, featuring custom LEGO graphics, verbal and visual LEGO messages, thematic LEGO questions and a fully custom-created LEGO host.

The key aspect of animation and render time in the LEGO films is the amount of complexity that goes into each frame. The facial animation of a minifigure in the film takes any given animator a week to produce five seconds and creating a live, animated LEGO host is not only cramming all of that work into 30 frames per second, but having it be driven by a performer in real-time, was completely uncharted territory.

The broadcast took place live from Sydney, Australia at the headquarters of Animal Logic, the digital studio behind The LEGO Movie and The LEGO Movie 2: The Second Part. Animal Logic’s team of artists, technicians and animators worked closely with HQ Trivia and Warner Bros. Pictures to execute the live and interactive animation that brought Scott Rogowsky’s LEGO minifigure to life.

Rogowsky wore a skin-tight, but wireless suit that included 12 sensors through virtual motion capture and a shoulder-mounted facial capture rig. There was no camera used for the broadcast.

Animal Logic converted the minifigure assets from the film into the Unreal engine from Epic Games and sent data from the suit and rig into Unreal, achieving a seamless and organic stop-motion feel that best represented the look and movement of the iconic toy characters in real-time.

Within seconds of sending the push notification, over half a million people opened their phones to experience the live, interactive animation spectacle, where players competed for $75,000 and rare LEGO collectibles.

The positive reaction coming out of this partnership helped generate a lot of buzz and anticipation for the film’s release. The organic conversation around the film that was generated in the aftermath of the custom HQ game had a sharp spike upwards. Overall, fans of HQ Trivia and the film loved the partnership and this campaign was an important component in helping The LEGO Movie 2: The Second Part take the box office and become the number one movie in the world on its opening weekend.