Elite Multimedia Makes a 25th Anniversary Statement with Audemars Piguet

Founded in 1875 in the Swiss village of Le Brassus, Audemars Piguet is the undeniable leader in the successful combination of artistic excellence and technical mastery in luxury timepieces. Recently celebrating the 25th Anniversary of their groundbreaking Royal Oak Offshore product line, the company entrusted their longtime creative partner Superculture to develop a marketing campaign worthy of the celebration. Desiring an impactful film element to be the statement piece of the campaign, Superculture brought on the directorial team at Rankin Film to help create "The Future of First" featuring NBA MVP LeBron James, and a high-impact LED video design supplied by Elite Multimedia.

"I am commissioned by Audemars Piguet to create various product and branding campaigns that we then execute through a number of different media elements including film, social media, online, and print," began Jarvis, creative director, Superculture. "This project was for the 25th Anniversary of a watch that really created a whole new product category and we wanted to remind everyone that this was the first. In looking at the execution of the film, there are a lot of big, macho statements being made by others in this product category, so we wanted to do something that was a bit of an antidote to all that."

Diving deeper into the concept of the piece, Jarvis began to visualize the ideal production environment for the film. Wanting a powerful yet simplistic statement, he developed a design that would allow them to push their boundaries of creativity.

"We wanted the production to be more thoughtful and poetic using the idea of a single speaker who has an understated presence of power," continues Jarvis. "I have done a couple of other films where we used a big LED screen, but nothing on the scale of what we had here. This dark, minimalist environment with just this intense, massive screen, DJ and LeBron James created a powerful and surreal world in which, ultimately the Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Offshore became the hero."

With the marketing campaign approved and ready to move forward, Rankin Film now began looking at how to bring the production to Cleveland, Ohio. Needing a talented line producer to oversee the production in the United States, Rankin Film enlisted the assistance of Richard Weager whom they had worked with on a number of projects in the past.

"I've known both the director, Rankin, and his executive producer, Nicola Kenney, for quite some time now, so they asked me to run the production as line producer as someone they could trust with the project," says Weager. "From a creative perspective, my biggest concern on the project was finding the right people to do the LED video screen, as that was obviously a major component to the design. When I started investigating LED video production companies, the team at Elite Multimedia seemed very switched-on to what we were trying to accomplish, and they gave us a lot of creative options for the LED video solution."

Jumping into the design with Elite Multimedia, the proper selection LED technology would be crucial. Needing to stay focused on both the performance capabilities of the screen and how they could make it work on location.

Weager continued, "During the design process, we brought in the director of photography so that we could work out the product specification elements, such as the brightness of the screen, how it would read on camera, and its power needs as well. We ended up using a space that is predominately a wedding venue, so it was in pretty good shape technically, plus it had the old brick work and wrought iron interior that the director wanted. We booked the venue for five days and it only took us probably three days of prep to get the full production environment ready to go."

Time for shooting to begin, the full creative team was now assembled in Cleveland, along with the DJ and James, who would be bringing the script to life. In a stark production environment, the speaker would stand tall often silhouetted in front of beautiful, high-resolution imagery.

"The first image we see on the LED screen is a stunning image from the English contemporary artist, Dan Holdsworth, shot in a valley high up in the Swiss mountains which we use to explain the history of the watch," explained Jarvis. "We then shot high-definition images of two different watches; one as a backdrop to LeBron while speaking, and the other is a large concept piece created for the Anniversary that gives us a deeper focus on the new watch design. There is also a line in the film which says, 'first is a magic stunt' so when LeBron delivers the line, we have a video of a dove appearing on screen behind him as a suggestion of a magic trick."

Now complete, Audemars Piguet has officially launched the 25th Anniversary campaign for the Royal Oak Offshore. Receiving numerous accolades on the creativity of the campaign elements, the design team behind the project is confident that they achieved both the statement and the excitement desired.

"To be honest, I thought the final result was absolutely amazing," adds Jarvis. "From the moment we walked on set, it was exactly as I had envisioned, but when LeBron walked in and stood at the microphone, you knew this was going to be something special. It was a very successful shoot and was everything that we wanted it to be."

"The technical know-how of the guys at Elite Multimedia really was top-notch," concludes Weager. "A lot of people have the technical know-how and expertise, but in this environment, it always comes down to the people behind the equipment. Their team of video designers was extremely friendly, very easy to deal with, and they will be my go-to provider for any project such as this in the future."