Keeping an audience’s interest for 30 seconds is tough enough, so how do you sustain their attention through a potentially very dry four-minute history of a 200-year-old financial services company?

Berlin studio David & Pauline take on that challenge in this brand film for Swiss multinational bank and investment house Pictet, with a sophisticated and surrealist visual treatment.

Pauline Schleimer and David Després: “The Challenge was to tell the full story of the Pictet brand from their creation in 1805 and at the same time project them as a modern and visionary actor.

“To be able to mix past, present, and future concepts, we had to create a timeless atmosphere. The art direction was designed to be minimalistic in terms of composition and colors but at the same time to be elegant.

“Each scene, each landscape is unique and created with collages that play with differences of scale, with mineral elements, natural textures, and geometric shapes.

“The rhythm takes us from one period to another in a smooth and perpetual graphic journey while the animation gives consistency and coherence to all the unlikely scenes.”
 

 
Client: Pictet

Agency: Freestudios
Creative oversight: Gregory Casares
Commissioning editor/writer: Eric Burg

Production: David & Pauline
Director: David & Pauline

Music/sound design: Freestudios
Voice over: Juliet Stevenson, CBE