When BMW asked for a “talk of show” display, Elastique. delivered, trusting Frame.io to securely share the automaker’s high-value designs across a distributed team.
Learn how creative agency Elastique. helped BMW speed into the future with impressive interactive experiences for the international car show circuit.
Challenge
BMW commissioned Cologne-based Elastique. to create a new AR trade show experience to wow attendees at the IAA motor show in Frankfurt and beyond. But that wasn’t all they wanted. A meticulously choreographed 27-car, 30-minute driving experience through the BMW Welt exhibition center for the #NEXTGen conference was the second component, along with a brand new look for the international press conference experience. And with a team of three creative partners working across Germany, ensuring that BMW’s prerelease designs were protected throughout was of paramount importance.
Solution
The abstract concepts required an inventive and iterative process, complicated by the physical distance between the agencies, Elastique., and BMW, and the short time for execution. Frame.io sat at the center of the process—enabling all of them to collaborate securely from design to delivery.
Results
The Elastique. team delivered a 15-minute video loop of eye-popping animation at 6K using nearly 20TB of data for the trade fair installation. Seeing the faces of the thousands of spectators when the BMW Concept 4 car sprouted CG “hair” drove home the team’s success in creating the “talk of show” experience. The 27-car drive went off without a hitch, as did the press conference.
Learn more about how Elastique. created groundbreaking designs for BMW with a remote workflow, and stayed on track throughout the process.
Frame.io enables creative collaboration.
Conceived to depart from the usual BMW combination of live-action driving footage with motion graphics, the theme of this installation was intended to convey a wider story around “the joy of driving,” and to evoke an emotional response through a playful and immersive approach. Elastique. was responsible for creating the visuals for LED “curtain” stories that included 3D elements for the AR materials component. Working with a CG mockup, Frame.io played an essential role in allowing them to collaborate easily with the BMW team by letting all of them draw directly onto the specific portions of the installation so they could quickly identify what elements were (and weren’t) working.
Frame.io speeds up the process.
The second component of the project was for the #NEXTGen conference, a three-day event focusing on the future of mobility technology at the BMW Welt in Munich. With a seven-week production schedule, Elastique. worked with Berlin agency Blue Scope to choreograph an intricate 30-minute experience set to music that combined animated graphics and live action footage with 27 cars actually driving through the exhibition space.
In order to maximize every moment of the tight production schedule, Elastique. relied heavily on Frame.io for the extensive previsualization phase. First, they set up the complete show as a film project using Adobe Premiere Pro Team Project. Because Elastique. had to incorporate live-action footage and digital imagery with the choreography of the real cars driving, Blue Scope first simulated the paths the cars would take with the estimated time it would take them to drive through their designated routes. Then, they created a view of how the animations would map onto the stage setup. In Frame.io, Elastique. put the two next to each other with the driving plan on the left and animations plan on the right so they could create a “document” that would show how the two would mesh. For the two days of pre-show rehearsal, they even used Frame.io to send the video of the patterns to the 27 drivers’ iPhones to use as reference.
Frame.io gives clients peace of mind.
Elastique. was an early adopter of Frame.io and has used it across numerous projects over the years. But it played a particularly important role in this one, both creatively and in terms of security. Safety, ease, and performance are what BMW stands for as a brand, and that’s what this team required from Frame.io to successfully carry this project over the finish line.
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