Animated Racing Car Zooms Through Tron-Esque Digital Landscape in Casio Campaign
UNIT proudly collaborated on this new visual ident and advertorial campaign for Casio Edifice’s sponsorship of Discovery Channel.
Created by Discovery Creative Director Lee Healy and Think Make Create’s director Marcus Jones, the campaign sets out to showcase Casio Edifice’s continued commitment to ‘Speed & Intelligence’ using the tagline ‘Engineering sponsored by Casio Edifice, Connected Technology.’
With post production overseen by UNIT’s Head of Broadcast & Branding, Executive Producer Kevin Docherty, this campaign showcases UNIT’s enormous internal creative talent presenting some stunning CG, incredible audio & sound design and design finesse courtesy of UNIT’s new studio, Design Collective all under its one roof.
Q> Kev, as one of the many experienced EP’s at UNIT, tell us about the close relationship you have nurtured with both broadcast channel Discovery and director Marcus Jones and how did this current project compare?
KD> We have collaborated with Marcus & Discovery on many projects over the years and have a great working relationship with them both. The challenge with Casio was to better last year’s campaign. Marcus’ great creative idea allowed our artists to let loose. The result is an amazing set of films that look stunning. We couldn't be happier with the results.
Q> Tito (Fernandes), you led the enormous CG contribution to this campaign which must have been a dream project to get your teeth into, how did you pull it all together?
TF> What can I say about Casio? It was an incredibly interesting and exciting challenge. On one hand, the brief was very precise in its visual direction, on the other it had to be original.
We decided to generate a ‘pitchvis, that immediately gave everyone the intention of what we were visually proposing; speed, cameras and visual language etc. However, it also became a clear internal communication tool and this step demonstrated to the client that we were the best creative partners for this project.
Once the job was confirmed and we had been sent across the watch data, we moved onto the next stage of production, ‘previs’. It quickly became an invaluable tool that allowed for everything to fall into the right place. Once the offline was locked down, the team got revved-up and we were really excited to create something cool. The multi-disciplinary nature of the job demanded a co-operation of 3D, Design, Editing and Sound Design, all provided by us at UNIT.
We developed a rigid methodological structure to turn around 60sec worth of CG in record time. The tasks were very carefully assigned and executed with utmost discipline, exploring the best camera work for each of the shots approved in previs, the best pallet of control for composition to come in and develop the look and style with the possibility of last minute changes. The processes worked extremely well and both 3D and 2D departments delivered their top quality. In addition to that our new design studio, the Design Collective came in to augment and embellish the visual language that the film required.
In the end, the client was over the moon with our creative collaboration and we were very happy with the amount of creative freedom entrusted in us. It was a lovely job that showcased the synergy of UNIT, collectively working together and made us proud to have achieved it in record time.
Q> Chris (Southwell), as one of UNIT’s Senior Sound Designers, this must have been a very exciting film in terms of Sound Design, how did you approach it?
CS> This project was all about matching sound design to the amazing visual effects. All VFX aspects where created in-house, which gave me the opportunity to see early renders and start to plan the sound design. After speaking with Marcus Jones (Director), it was clear Tron Legacy would be a useful reference for the SFX. I spent time creating synth elements, mixed with real engines and a few other little tricks to bring the visuals to life.
Q> Marcus (Jones), you directed the campaign through Think Make Create, tell us about any challenges you overcome and why you regularly collaborate with UNIT?
MJ> Casio Edifice’s relationship with Formula 1 teams Red Bull Racing and now Scuderia Toro Rosso inspired us to produce creative that really pushed the limits of perception and innovation, in showing a race against time. To do this we set the film in a world where reality has shrunk to watch level and the action takes us inside the timepiece.
Overcoming the challenge of miniaturizing the ‘watch world’ without reducing the gravitas of the watch and racing car, was paramount.
We selected UNIT to work with, as we had complete trust in their ability to realize our creative vision, direction and high production values.
Q> Lee (Healy), this is a fantastic film for Casio, you must be very pleased with the final campaign. As Creative Director at Discovery Creative London, what was your inspiration for this project and what did you most enjoy about making the film?
LH> This is the 5th year that Casio has chosen to sponsor Discovery with its range of Edifice watches, which is quite unprecedented in the world of TV sponsorship. And each year, we raised the creative bar, so we needed something pretty special to make sure that this was the best year yet - no pressure!
Inspiration for the idea came from the product itself, really. Because Casio Edifice watches are engineered for perfect timing and full of clever, connected technology, the challenge was to highlight these features in a unique and memorable way.
In partnership with Discovery Creative London, director Marcus Jones and Think Make Create came up with a bold, ambitious idea that Casio loved: a high-speed race against time around the internal workings of a Casio Edifice Watch.
Such a simple idea, but a very tricky one to pull off well. It fell to the talented team at UNIT to bring Marcus’ vision to life, and they did an incredible job. The best thing about the project was everyone working together with a great client and a shared vision to deliver absolutely brilliant creative work.
