Innovation at Elia
Elia
What will the grid of the future look like?
The Briefing
Elia is the Belgian transmission system operator for high-voltage electricity. Innovation is at the core of the company’s activity. In fact, they are currently developing projects that will improve the entire country’s quality of life! But who knows that? So Elia decided it was time to tell their story – and how consumers fit into it!
The story we wanted to tell
We produced four short animations focusing on the trends and challenges in today’s energy market.
It was important to show how Elia uses different technologies as well as how they are rethinking and improving them for the future. We show, for instance, how Elia is deploying drones for pylon maintenance tasks, how a grid is restructured to exploit renewable energy and how more and more people today are producing their own energy.
3D visuals were the ideal solution to best fulfill Elia’s requirements and to reflect their technological innovations.
The creative process
We knew that this high-tech subject needed a high-tech look! So we brought Elia’s message to life using 3D animation with a friendly touch.
We used a white backdrop for the action to unfold, introducing the 3D elements one by one. Wind turbines, cars, houses and drones are depicted realistically, but stylized, as if modelled from white clay.
Of course, showing white objects on a white background wouldn’t mean much if we weren’t permeating the entire set with hyper-real HDRI lighting: very smooth shadows appear, highlighting the volume so that the elements and action are visible.
Broadcast
This content was created to be shown at a specific grand-scale event. Elia wanted to present their work and demonstrate their long-term investment in research and development.
Following on from this work, we created a virtual reality film for the same event, showing the control center of the electricity network filmed with a 360° camera.