ABOUT

A futuristic car deserves a futuristic sales pitch, and that is exactly what Juniper Park TBWA and 1st Ave aimed for to launch the Nissan Ariya. Having three brand ambassadors selected for the stunt, we figured that who better than themselves could truly convince Laurent Dagenais, Cheyenne Catchpole, and Karl Conrad that this car is the perfect complement to their lifestyles?

With that idea came the concept of holograms, which we intricately crafted by leveraging an array of technologies to authentically recreate each influencer digitally. The challenge: making sure none of them were expecting it, keeping the reveal and the surprise, for the shoot.

We started the process by cloning the influencers’ voices in order to generate unexpected speech interactions on-set. We recorded them reading various texts to properly replicate their pronunciation, intonations, and emotions. Then using an AI tool, we were able to accurately replicate their voice with new custom texts to be spoken by their soon to be created metahuman.

Our second—and most important—step in creating this stunt was to create impeccable digidoubles. After having conducted 3D scans of the influencers and using actors to mimic their movement in mocap suits, we leveraged our custom-built Unreal pipeline to bring those digidoubles to life. We dressed their metahumans in futuristic clothing and added a glitch effect to add to the futuristic hologram concept. These avatars were then added to the Unreal environments created for the live-shoot.

On-set, we successfully surprised the influencers with their digidoubles in real time using the virtual wall—a feat never done in a live production before. Their holograms interacted with them and the car through the video wall and through the screen inside the Nissan Ariya. Our color grading added the final touch, perfecting the stunt and commercial.

Thanks to Nissan Canada, 1st Ave, and Juniper Park TBWA for entrusting us with this concept and giving us the opportunity to innovate and showcase our expertise.