Microsoft Surface Pro 8

Launch film for the Surface Pro 8 — a tightly woven hybrid of live action and CG that pulled the device into hyper-real environments while keeping its industrial design unmistakable.

Client: Microsoft
Role: Technical Lead, Design, Animation & Compositing
Studio: FutureDeluxe
Year: 2021
Tags: product · launch · live action · CGI · hybrid
External: behance.net ↗

Description

The Surface Pro 8 launch had to do two things in the same minute: hold the device’s industrial design with the reverence Microsoft’s design team is known for, and locate it inside a world that felt the way using one feels — fluid, ambient, slightly weightless. Doing that with pure CG would have looked too composed; doing it with pure live action would have looked too literal. So we built it as a hybrid where neither layer was visibly the parent — the seam is hidden by ethereal motion that exists in both worlds at once.

I led the build technically and was hands-on through design, animation, and compositing. The technical lead role is mostly about removing the fights — making sure the live-action footage from Swanson, the CG from our team, and the comp passes were all speaking the same color, lighting, and motion-blur language so the seam disappears. When that hand-off works, the audience just sees the device floating where it belongs.