Rising from the surreal landscape of an incredible alien world, Nike’s reinvented running shoe, the LunarEpic Flyknit, was a product launch of galactic proportions.
Together with Blacklist and a crew of otherworldly talents from around the world, we created the teaser, launch film, and global Nike in-store installations. We built an A-list team for the project that included one of our award-winning HIGH5ER studios, Frame, to co-direct.
One of the biggest challenges wasn’t that production was a global initiative; the challenge was mostly in creating the environment where the action takes place. Armed with photo references from Nike of Pariah Canyon in the United States (a place of insanely gorgeous flowing layers of rocks) we created an entire planet in 3D.
This was no small feat–we did it by researching, experimenting, going back to drawing board some more, and then by exporting data back and forth between World Machine and C4D.
Besides the amazing team who we had the pleasure of collaborating with, shout-outs to Google Hangouts, Sheets, Slack, Dropbox, continental airline travel, coffee, and beer for helping make this other-worldly experience a pain-free collaboration.
Teaser video
























Behind The Scenes






























Experiential Launch Event
For the global launch in 2015 of Nike’s revolutionary new shoe, the Nike Lunar, Tendril adapted the launch film we had created into a larger-than-life store installation that featured the film’s content inside Nike’s Manhattan flagship location.
Since we had a ton of space to work with inside the five-storey retail space, we designed an indoor installation that showcased the galactic visuals—in beautiful 4k resolution—upon a giant screen measuring 38’ x 47’ made of lightweight LED panels, as well as a sidewalk facing LED screen.
The panel configuration was customized to feature super hi-res on the retail floor, with slightly lower resolution panels higher up where shoppers would view the screens from a greater distance.








Credits
Client
Nike
Nike Global Brand Communications
Tad Greenough
Executive Producer
Noah Stanik
Producer
Meagan Moore
Production Company
Blacklist
EP
Andrew Linsk
Producer
Karen Lawler, Alex Unick
Studio
Tendril, Frame
Co-Directors
Chris Bahry, Tom Crate
EPs
Kate Bate, Thomas Bay
HOP / Producer
Mary Anne Ledesma
Producer
Louise Bejerholm
Storyboards
Greg Boychuk, Gabe Sapienza
Editor
Tom Crate
Pitch Concepts
Chris Bahry, Tom Crate, Wojtek Szklarski, Ann Kruetzkamp, Marco Iozzi
REVEAL FILM
Lead 3D Artists & Animation
Nejc Polovsak, Matt Frodsham, Simon Fiedler
Particle FX
Simon Fiedler, Alasgar Hasanov, Marcin Porebski
Shoe Rigging Animation
Matias Hansen
Lighting Render
Nejc Polovsak, Matt Frodsham
Additional 3D Artists
Sacha Wechselmann, Ben Pilgrim
Shoe Modelling
Marek Denko
Matte Painting
Bojan Zoric, Form Language
Compositing
Chris Bahry, Brad Husband
TEASER FILM
3D Artists
Christian Hecht, Alasgar Hasanov, Chris Bahry
FX
Valdemaras Dzengo, Alasgar Hasanov
Light Render
Christian Hecht, Brad Husband
2D Animation
Gabriel Rocha
Compositing
Chris Bahry, Brad Husband
Additional Compositing
Alexandre Veaux
Sound Design & Music
John Black of CypherAudio
VO Artist
John McCann