Huawei
1+8+N campaign

UNIT teamed up with Havas and Dog Eat Dog for this stunning new spot for Huawei’s 1+8+N campaign. Working on such a highly anticipated campaign like Huawei gives our artists plenty to think about, with new and exciting challenges each time. From shoot to delivery it was the usual quick turnaround, with lots of different products to highlight.

For the grade, senior colourist Nick Dalby had a great starting point with the distinctive set lighting and dynamic camera moves. We augmented the atmosphere with subtle hue shifts and enhanced the light boxes around the set while retaining as much tone and separation in the skin and products as possible. This ensured the colours shifted smoothly between the flow of the film, adding to the excitement.

Thankfully for VFX lead Alec Eves, we managed to get the majority of the VFX and master films completed before the true impact of lockdown kicked in, sending everyone off to different parts of the country. The remaining deliverables, of which there were many, and some minor tweaks were all completed remotely.

The main challenge for sound designer Jamie Thomas was to give the robots an expressive, human tone rather than a generic servo whirr - due to the high intensity of the composed music track this proved quite a challenge. We opted to use pneumatic whooshes to soften the abrasiveness of the robots, allowing the music and SFX to complement each other. It was a very fine line to tread as they needed to be futuristic, cut through at the right times and not be too heavy so as to come across as 'steam punk’. In the end, we recorded a small selection of servo whirrs but only as a top note texture to complement the pneumatic noises and give the impression of movement. These were treated very carefully and we only accentuated the highest frequencies so as not to detract from the main sounds. In turn these were modulated in synthesis to help portray movement and flow.