The Challenge

Mobile satellite communications provider Inmarsat came to Visualise with the challenge of telling the story of their new Inmarsat-5 F4 satellite, ahead of its launch by SpaceX in May 2017. With the launch of the new satellite, Inmarsat’s award-winning Global Xpress network will have additional capacity to delivery worldwide communications to land, air and sea. The Star Trek fan in us couldn’t resist working on a project about a satellite powered by a real life ‘ion propulsion’ system.

The Solution

After a number of discovery meetings about where the story of Inmarsat lies and some serious exploration into creating this piece with scale models, we decided we had to take the opportunity to transport the viewer to outer space – where Inmarsat, although based on planet earth, really goes to work. We linked up our CG and motion graphics pipeline to the AMPAS award-winning Arnold render engine (used to produce the movie Gravity in 2013) to give a glowing, emotional texture to the light on the models. The piece unfolds by showing the full extent of Inmarsat’s network of satellites, the entry of the I-5 into orbit and, lastly, it’s linkup with an incredible 1/3rd of the earth’s surface.

Credits:

Creative Director - Will McMaster
Producer - Matthew Shannon
Sound Design - Henrik Oppermann
Lead Animator - Jey Malaiperuman
Lead 3D - Rory Lowe
Render Engine - Arnold