Existing now:Mercedes-Benz EQS
Mercedes-Benz EQS. A glimpse of the future, here today. An avant-garde video campaign for Mercedes. Existing now is a commercial directed by film director Ruslan Tolkach.
role — Visual Effects Artist
year — 2023
tools — After Effects, Premiere Pro
Final product
the idea
Existing now is a commercial directed by film director Ruslan Tolkach. The project aimed to showcase the Mercedes-Benz EQS in a unique and innovative way, highlighting its advanced features and futuristic design. The commercial was inspired by the cinamatography of the first Dune movie from Denis Villeneuve.
the process
As this was a fully remote collaboration, we had to adapt our workflow to ensure seamless communication and coordination among the team members.
This proved especially difficult as the project was very time sensitive and we had to work with a very tight deadline.
I was responsible for creating the visual effects for the commercial, which involved a lot of iterative design in After Effects and Premiere Pro.
Which due to the time constraints, required a lot of back and forth with the director to ensure that the final product met his vision.
On the right you can see a video of the first version of the visuals I created.
a closer look
The visuals existed of a particle sphere that knew 3 different states. Rest, Awereness, and tension. Each state was represented by a difference in motion.
The idea was to create a visual representation of the car's feelings when the unknown characters approach the car.
It would react to the characters and change its state accordingly.
As the nature of a recorded commercial means that you don't have to implement the visuals in real time, I didnt need to worry about performance and interactivity.
Instead I could focus on creating the 3 distinct states and the transitions between them.
The video on the left shows the final version of the visuals, which was used in the commercial.
I had to create the final version in the exact resolution of the gigantic LED wall that was used to display the visuals.
the result
I am super proud of what I was able to achieve in a short amount of time, given the constraints of the project. Due to the completely remote nature of the project I had to do some things differently than I would have done in a normal studio environment. But this was a great learning experience and I am very happy with the opportunity to work on such a high-profile project.