Nexus director Kibwe Tavares, who you know from his excellent big fish tale “Jonah,” turns his considerable narrative talents to the financial world in this detail-packed three-minute brand film for Umpqua Bank animated by the Nexus crew and produced thru CAA Marketing.

Kibwe Tavares: “I wanted to create a beautifully simple, magical narrative that would hit the key themes of Hope, Empowerment and Triumph, showing how something relatively ordinary, that we take for granted, can transform into something spectacular.

“The devil really was in the details, both plants and cities have a lot of character. Getting that level of detail accurate not just for the ‘hero’ seed but across all the vegetation, and the whole city both above and below ground, recreating a magical environment that resonates with the viewer and delivers an emotional impact, was quite a challenge.

“By using lidar data and scans, the team was able to build props and recreate environments with scales ranging from individual stones in tarmac to entire city-wide shots, which were then textured in MARI.”

Client: Umpqua Bank
Agency: CAA Marketing
Director: Kibwe Tavares
Production/animation: Nexus