C70 Series — Picture & Acoustics

1. Business Context & Objective

For the launch of its C70 Series television lineup, TCL wanted to spotlight its acoustic partnership with JBL around a strong creative idea summed up by the film's tagline: “Exceptional picture deserves exceptional sound.” Unlike a conventional hardware video that shows a television set from every angle from the very first second, this commercial — conceived by agency BETC, produced by Rita Films, and directed by Baptiste Massé — commits to pure immersion: the screen is intentionally kept in the background and only unveiled in the final packshot.

On this production, Alexandre Ferré (founder and current Creative Director of Alt-Studio) worked within the studio Mécanique Générale to lead art direction, 3D/VFX team supervision, and compositing, while creature animations were crafted by Gobo Animation. The goal was to plunge the viewer into the heart of a lush, ultra-colorful tropical rainforest before making them realize, shot after shot, that studio microphones are hidden throughout the vegetation to capture the slightest acoustic vibration.

2. Art Direction & Technical Challenge

For a director and a VFX supervisor, the central challenge of a film that sells sound through picture without showing the product until the very end is making a dual visual reading work in every single shot:

1. Demonstrating the promise of “exceptional picture” through organic set richness: even before the viewer catches the narrative twist, they must feel like they are watching a nature documentary of impeccable photographic quality. This required managing massive 3D botanical density (misty canopy, volumetric god rays, translucent wet foliage) and vibrant creatures (Oophaga pumilio poison dart frog, hovering hummingbird) capable of holding up in extreme close-ups.
2. Orchestrating the gradual reveal of the microphones through staging and optical focus: the microphones concealed in the jungle could neither jump out in the first millisecond nor look artificially pasted into the scenery. All our work in art direction, lighting, and depth of field (defocus / bokeh) during compositing guided the animal's gaze toward the microphone recording it, building up to the wide shot revealing the entire canopy rigged with sound gear.

3. Deployed Pipeline (3D CGI / Motion / Hybrid AI)

To build this tropical ecosystem and carry it through to the final television packshot, the production relied on a Maya, ZBrush, Substance Painter, Redshift Render, and Nuke pipeline:

1. Tropical Environments & Creatures (Maya, ZBrush & Substance Painter): modeling and sculpting of the plant species, the dart frog, the hummingbird, and the various studio microphones. High-resolution texture maps were authored in Substance Painter to craft the organic details of petals, feathers, amphibian skin, and the brushed metallic mesh of the mics.
2. Animation, Shaders & Lighting (Gobo Animation & Redshift): integration of the naturalistic creature animations produced by Gobo Animation alongside detailed shaders (backlit foliage and petal translucency, surface moisture, brushed microphone metal) and volumetric tropical lighting.
3. Art Direction & Final Compositing (Nuke): under the direct supervision of Alexandre Ferré, Nuke compositing played a decisive role in unifying the 3D passes, dialing in optical defocus, integrating atmospheric mist, and executing the final camera pull-back into the living room featuring the TCL C70 television and its integrated JBL soundbar.

4. Production Cadence & Methodology

This project highlights Alexandre Ferré's ability to steer multi-partner advertising productions bringing together agency (BETC), production company (Rita Films), director (Baptiste Massé), and specialized studios (Mécanique Générale and Gobo Animation):

• Art Direction Framing & Cross-Team Supervision: translating the director's and agency's intentions into clear technical briefs for the environment, shading, lighting, and animation teams.
• Progressive Approval of the Tropical Tableaux: shot-by-shot tuning of the balance between fauna, flora, and microphone placement in close sync with the sound design team.
• Master Compositing & Finishing: final assembly and color grading ensuring seamless visual continuity between the macro jungle shots, the wide mic-rigged canopy reveal, and the final television packshot.

5. Delivered Formats & Adaptations

This collaboration produced a memorable brand film for TCL:

• Master Commercial Film (16:9) broadcast on television and international digital platforms to support the launch of the C70 Series and the JBL partnership.
• Key visual stills extracted from hero shots (misty canopy, hummingbird, Oophaga pumilio frog, and microphones) illustrating the picture and sound quality of the lineup.