It was just a few days before Christmas that the call came in. We’d been recommended by a client from Apple and the team at Tata Motors wanted to speak to us about a project.
It was more than a car launch (literally, it was two car launches) – it would be one of the most strategically important developments in the long and distinguished heritage of the brand. In April. That’s four months. In the best possible way, that timeline demonstrated how unconventional and ambitious Tata Motors is – and what an incredible and exciting journey we have had with them.
The world now knows about the CURVV and AVINYA concept cars, both brand new EV concepts to bring best-in-class EV technology to life, not just for Tata’s considerable Indian market, but as a global offering. A big part of our brief was to “emphatically deliver an optimistic vision of the future and the company’s belief in a human-centric approach to design and technology”.
“Ambition was not in short supply in both the Tata and XYZ teams”
We set about concepting launch experiences for the two cars that would establish Tata on a global stage, transcending the domestic market, and setting up the announcement of an entire arm of the Tata Motors group dedicated to the future of electric vehicles – Tata Passenger Electric Mobility.
Assembling our production team
Our film team, led by executive producer Jim Sayer set about assembling an array of talent that included specialist automotive film director Martin Bennett and access to Mars XR Studio in north London that enabled us to utilise game-changing Unreal Engine technology to create dynamic rendered backgrounds to build an epic near-future landscape for the AVINYA to “travel” effortlessly through. The ability of this studio technology to enable reflections, light play and the convincing illusion of motion was fundamental in conveying our creative vision. The mixture of aspirational technology, human connection, wellness and sensory engagement were core aspects of Tata’s aesthetic when designing the AVINYA concept, so it was vital we found ways to convey them in the film.
The films for CURVV and AVINYA would form the cornerstone of interactive content experiences, supported by physical events on the ground in India. The larger of the two would be for AVINYA, where guests from the auto industry, wellness, lifestyle, fashion, and technology media platforms would move through a sensory immersion as they entered the launch event space. A mix of textures, light, sound and aromas were interwoven to help convey the attention to sensory engagement that is integral to the driver (and passenger) experience in AVINYA. These sensory touch points were mapped to specific messages – Spirit, Sustainable, Serenity and Space, amongst others, along a curved tunnel leading into the auditorium. These nebulous touch points were supported by more physically imposing technical aspects such as the 22m wide hi-res LED screen and stage revolve, providing the media guests with a 360 degree showcase of the AVINYA a concept car.
Our work on films, interactive content launch events and the IRL launch moment in Mumbai garnered extremely positive feedback from the client team, citing its effectiveness in getting global media coverage as a key strategic shift for the brand. Three days after the AVINYA launch, we received another call from the Tata team in India, about another project… time to put our seatbelts on!
Writer Credit: Paul Stanway, Executive Creative Director
Project Credits:
Executive Producer for XYZ– Jim Sayer
Director/Creative – Martin Bennett
Producer – Keiko Nagai
DoP– Konstantin Freyer
Art Director – Richard Henley (Curvv) and Zoe Koperski (Helios/Avinya)
Production – Mustard-Berlin
Cast (Helios/Avinya) – Emily Butcher & Paul Kane
Composer – Walter Mair (Helios) and Chromium Music (Curvv)
XR Studio – Mars
Unreal Artwork – Quite Brilliant (Helios) and Realtime (Curvv)
Editor – Pete Lurie
Grade – Jon Dobson @ Wash Post
