I study the course MA Moving Image at Ravensbourne College for Design and Communication in London, UK. I was tasked with developing over the course of five weeks a campaign video + Instagram 15-second alternate video for a brand of my choosing. I chose Bang & Olufsen because I adore their design, plus I share their Danish heritage and felt like promoting my country.

The project was made with Cinema 4D and finished in Premiere Pro and After Effects.

I got interior 3D models from 3Dsky.org (direct purchase) and Dimensiva.com (I kindly asked for permission).

Initial progress required me to understand the brand identity, which I documented on my project blog. My initial analysis of the luxury brand B&O would be that they appeal to people who care about aesthetics, quality and audiophile sound (as well as bragging rights if you're that kind of person). 

I tried to process all of my understandings at the time into a moving image prototype in order to show my tutor and co-students what sort of color scheme, mood (I also made a thorough mood board, mind you) and aesthetic style that I was going for:

My video prototype was received with a lot of encouraging and impressed feedback and, accompanied by my brand analysis and presentation of mood board, the project was greenlighted by my tutor who seemed genuinely impressed with the direction.

The main concept was to create a mechanical-looking flower object consisting of audio speakers instead of flower petals, to celebrate what's inside B&O products, seeing as their commercials tend to focus on the finished beauty of their products, as well as the segment of people who they wish to cater to. This project tries to focus on the contrast between form and function by emphasising the insides of a product in a black (like inside a chassis where the light does not go) environment. The commercial then transitions between the dark environments into brightly lit, white interiors decorated with living room and bedroom furniture, accompanied by Bang & Olufsen's audio devices. Once that all has been going on for around 25 seconds the video goes back to the dark scene, showcasing speakers on the floor being lit up as the camera zooms out to reveal that the speakers form the B&O logo:

You will find beneath some of my test renders and some brief videos of my Cinema 4D scenes:

I followed a tutorial by Travis Laidlaw for this robot arm, in preparation of my mechanical speaker flower design. 

  The mech arm ended up looking great:

The speaker flow then followed the same principles as the mechanical arm with connecting joints and a fully rigged body with slider parameters for animation:

I ended up being unhappy with my mechanical flower and decided not to go with it after all, instead using the speakers from the Beolab 90 model that I had already spent money on.

Moving forward, I had to make a room and populate it with neat lighting to create the proper contrasts from my blackened scene.

Seeing as Dimensiva.com actually has free Bang & Olufsen models I felt like I had to use the opportunity to add some more detail to my video. I went for a hierarchy of products ordered by the big Beolab 90 speaker shown above (purchased on 3DSky) and the free models from Dimensiva, including the Beolab 19 (medium-size floor or table speaker) and the BeoPlay H6 headphones for portability, showing customers that B&O has something for all price-ranges and purposes.

I covered the headphones by actually putting them in my white-room scene shown above, as equipment you can pick up from your table and simply equip (although they aren't actually wireless). 

  Below is a quick video of me applying materials to the model (I can't get imports from 3DS Max to work with C4D and I have no experience in 3DS Max and didn't feel like spending my five weeks on something that might end up looking horrible):

For a more detailed run-down of the entire brand analysis and project development cycle, feel free to visit my project blog The Motion Scramble. 

I am also very interested in any and all feedback so that I might learn from the experience, so do comment if you have any critique to give!