Project Case Study
For Your Consideration
Awards Submission
Welcome to Bella Levels Up – a live variety show on Twitch where TikTok star Bella Poarch pushes herself to Level Up by learning new skills. With the help of some friends and professional special guests, she is guided through important lessons and confronts unique challenges in both virtual and IRL worlds. It’s honest, it’s empowering, it’s a journey.
Bella Levels Up captured the personality of an influencer greater than TikTok. With storytelling and conversation as deep as a podcast. With an aesthetic to parallel the most cinematic music videos, while wielding the star-powered programming of a network TV show.
Bella Poarch is one of the most viewed people on the internet. After dabbling with some casual Twitch streaming, she came to us to help bolster her presence as a gamer, and knew we had a unique opportunity to make something completely unique. We set out to develop a weekly show with the cinematic quality of premium cable, the topical content of gen-z internet culture, and star-studded guests from the gaming community. Half talk-show, half gaming, and 100% authentic to Bella.
Bella rose to fame on TikTok, and has already translated that into a successful music career. Her fans follow her everywhere. But Twitch audiences are notoriously insular and cliquey. We knew that building Bella on Twitch was a challenge that called for a new approach unlike anything we see from her on other platforms. Twitch values unfiltered, vulnerable, and authentic creators. How can we make a show for Bella that draws her TikTok fans to something new and exciting, while also winning the sacred respect of the Twitch community?
Tonally, cinematically, and thematically, we set out to completely reimagine the playbook for a premium livestream broadcast. We spent six months developing, writing, and casting the show from the ground up. Working directly with Bella, we dove deep into what makes her tick - crafting the episodes' themes, segments, and art direction that were uniquely tailored to Bella's personality. By combining avant-garde set design, thoughtful scripting, adventurous wardrobe, a cinematic graphics package, and a marketing campaign to match - Bella Levels Up came to life.
Honoring the native Twitch experience, we utilized custom chat integration technology to enable live audiences to interact with Bella and guests in real-time, voting on in-game decisions and cheering them on throughout challenges.
Each two-hour episode consisted of segments meticulously crafted to maximize shareability. From deep chats about life to energized physical challenges, clips from Bella Levels Up spread across the internet like wildfire immediately following each episode.
In four episodes (simulcasted on Twitch, YouTube, Amazon Prime, and Twitter) Bella Levels Up boasted 1M+ live viewers per episode and 47.7M+ organic views on Bella's socials, and countless fans clipping and sharing their favorite moments, the result was a one-of-a-kind show that was not only successful on platform, but 100% authentic to our star. Bella's friends from the gaming world helped her level up in new games. Her friends from the real world helped her level up in fun IRL challenges including archery, cooking, and learning to drive. Along the way, they indulged in deep discussions about life's challenges and how to live life to the fullest.
This episode is about Exploration and Curiosity. Bella & Ludwig adventure the open world of Elden Ring before they both meet QTCinderella & a professional archer to become masters of the bow in an IRL Challenge.
This episode is about Celebrating Uniqueness as it can become your superpower! QuarterJade & Bella play Valorant as they master the powers of each agent before Valkyrae & professional chef Nico DeLeon join Bella to cook a Filipino dish IRL.
This episode is about Collaboration vs Competition. Sykkuno helps Bella strike that balance in an assortment of variety games: Party Animals/ Pico Park/ Fall Guys, before they meet Benny Blanco & a professional driver to teach Bella to drive a car IRL.
This episode is about Confidence and Risk. Becoming who you want to be only arrives by taking chances. Dream teaches Bella to find ways to overcome the obstacles of life, by sharing some Minecraft lessons before they meet GeorgeNotFound & a professional stuntwoman to master an IRL obstacle course.
We built the world of Bella Levels Up to represent four compartments of Bella's mind. Each room was designed to reflect the thematic content that took place there - be it Bella's vulnerable monologues, deep conversations with her guests, technical gaming segments, or collaborative physical challenges - each segment of the show had a physical home that represented it's theme.
Where it all begins - with self-reflection. Bella’s personal vanity for a 1-on-1 intro to the show. Each episode begins with her both vulnerable and confident. An open-diary space for her to pull us into her world, an abstractly-styled space based on self reflection.
A soft and warm space for deep conversations. It is rounded with no hard edges. It’s cozy, timeless, and surreal.
Where guests teach Bella techniques for the featured game of the week. It's based off of a brutalist testing facility. A stark contrast to the Room of Comforts, while still maintaining the surrealism of our world.
Each week’s IRL challenge takes place in a deconstructed flex space, in a white void adorned by colorful wall flats and props. We play with scale and texture to symbolize the transitional portal between the surreal spaces we have occupied and the real world.
A real elevator to serve as the gateway between Bella’s World and the IRL, think Severance.
