Cars Transform and Evolve in Michelin EV Film Made Almost Entirely using Unreal Engine

For the new Michelin film aimed at the electric vehicle market, BETC and POP (Prose On Pixels) have created a film almost entirely using Unreal Engine. A first in France, the advent of a new type of production solution: an innovative strategy to give life to a creative idea that would have been impossible to produce with the same agility using more traditional techniques.

"Because electric cars put tires to the test, equipment manufacturers generally offer specific tires. This is not the case at Michelin. In fact, the innovations that enable Michelin tires to perform particularly well on electric vehicles are the same ones for which Michelin is already recognized and renowned. As a result, the only thing an electric vehicle needs is a Michelin tire, because it meets the needs of all vehicles, electric or otherwise. A tire should be chosen for a particular use, not for a particular type of engine."

That's the message of this new BETC film, produced by POP (Prose On Pixels) and shot almost entirely with Unreal Engine. The 45-second sequence shot features an electric vehicle with white tires, which moves through a city and transforms smoothly into several types of vehicle, evoking all the challenges taken up by Michelin in recent years.

Always on the lookout for innovative production solutions, BETC and POP (Prose On Pixels) have deployed the Unreal Engine tool, previously used mainly for video games, to reinvent creative solutions for advertising production; this tool enables specialised experts to generate environments with immediate 3D rendering, with no intermediate “gray rendering” phase and no need to “sculpt” the material. The tool features licensed models, so you can import them or draw from the library to build your own city, environment or road trajectory, and watch the result take shape in real time. The director then has total freedom to move vehicles, choose optics, place the camera and adjust the sunlight.

While producing with Unreal Engine saves time and money, it nevertheless requires very specific and technical support, and mobilises a great deal of hands-on talent over a period of several weeks.

Over and above the new production tool used, the innovative aspect of the project lies in its organisation, with a full remote configuration from Paris to New York, for borderless access to the best talent. This controlled organisation not only guarantees creative excellence, but also allows us to move towards a more responsible mode of production, with no travel and no deployment of actual shooting logistics.

All the BETC and POP (Prose On Pixels) trades were mobilised: strategic planning for the angle and message, creation for the idea and follow-up, all the commercial trades to manage the project, legal affairs, the producers to drive exchanges and keep to schedules, post-production to smooth out all the faults inherent in this mode of production and guarantee the agility and final delivery of a high-quality film.

With the space between “thinking” and “doing” considerably reduced, BETC and POP (Prose On Pixels) had to work even more collaboratively to achieve the necessary level of synergy, agility and responsiveness. Hence the need for a well-honed production method and the strength of an integrated team from creation to post-production, with talent at its heart.

The contribution of a director and a team of technicians specialised in mastering the tool is essential. Without director Miles Cable, his team and their knowledge of cinematographic grammar and the physical reality of vehicle behaviour, it would have been impossible to achieve such realistic and spectacular results.

With this film, BETC and POP (Prose On Pixels) are taking another step in the direction of one of the possible futures of advertising creation and production, developing an increasingly innovative offer for their clients.