The most recent collaboration between venerable Swiss watchmaker Ulysse Nardin and the team at Paris studio I-réel, weaves a mix of CG and macro photography into a sweeping launch campaign for the new Freak S Nomad timepiece.

Mathilde Tournois, project manager at I-réel: “We created a series of assets for the global campaign showcasing the watch and its main features, especially the guilloché dial, a mix of ancestral craftmanship and cutting-edge technology.

“We decided to work with the notion of travel and verticality, and to stage this ‘drone’ movement like a spaceship that flies over natural landscapes that echo the materials and finishes of the watch. The ripples on the dunes echo the guilloché pattern of the dial and an aerial view of rice fields evokes the patterns of the Carbonium Gold used for the watch’s horns.
 

“We hesitated between two production options: real photography for more realism and atmosphere or recreate them entirely in CGI to avoid issues with parallax and lighting.”

 
“For the shots of the guilloché dial, we hesitated between two production options: real photography for more realism and atmosphere or recreate them entirely in CGI to avoid issues with parallax and lighting.

Ultimately, after a long testing phase, we chose to use real images that we adapted and enlivened with FX including smoke, clouds, and sand. We also created the entire watch and its components in CGI for other shots.

“To make a focus on the main features of the Freak S Nomad, we integrated the most important watch components into the landscapes. As we decided to isolate them one by one to show them off-scale, this meant reworking the finishing many times to reach the best renders.”

Watch I-réel’s previous film for Ulysse Nardin here.
 
 

 
Client: Ulysse Nardin

Production: I-réel
Director: Ravet Simon, Henri Hayon
Creative Director: Alain Laurans
Project Manager: Mathilde Tournois
Producer: Henri Hayon
Art Director: Ravet Simon, Jonathan Rayé
Lead 3D Artist : Bruno Jean
3D Artist: Gaspard Chaumette, Benjamin Laizet, Benjamin Reynolds
Motion Designer: Danielle Condé
Editor/Colorist: Ravet Simon
Photographer: Kevin Krautgartner