The School of Engineering at Deakin University launched the Centre for Advanced Design in Engineering Training (CADET) in October. The CADET facilities provide some of the most cutting-edge engineering and design facilities in Australia and facilitate a new design technology approach to the delivery of our engineering degrees.

Jumbla was asked to create a video opener for the CADET launch event and we are so glad that they came to us. The brief, while sounding somewhat simple, was very complex - the lead messaging would be centred around the idea that the words ‘Engineering’ and ‘Ingenious’ have the same etymology.

More than just men in overalls

“For the Deakin job we wanted to create something visually inspirational and engaging. We worked closely with the client to understand exactly what they wanted to say and then worked out the best way to express this visually," said Jumbla Creative Director Oz Smith.  

"The key message was that the CADET course was a state of the art, high tech educational facility, dispelling preconceptions about engineering being purely mechanical and solely for men in oily overalls.

"We wanted to create an aesthetic which would simultaneously appeal to the traditional engineering demographic and also catch the eye of a broader audience. This was achieved by creating futuristic landscapes based around technology and design to elevate the poetic narration and create enticing worlds.”

Pushing for progression

The team loved working on this project, the length of the piece and the progressive client who pushed us to interpret and experiment made it incredibly enjoyable to work on.

“We created most of the animation in 3D and then heavily composited and graded it to give a lot of atmosphere and tie all the shots together. We wanted to give the feel that the CADET course is in tune with the innate nature of engineering and design," said Oz.

We used a lot of glitch effects as transitions to suggest that everything is linked at a core level. We wanted to create a lot of space and contrast by playing with scale and making a few moments quite abstract to disorientate and make the viewer wonder where they were going to resurface, all the while trying to expand upon the narration.”

Engineering from a different perspective

"We particularly enjoyed the middle section which talks about engineering as an abstract concept and being in tune with art," said Oz. 

"For this we created lots of different ‘sculptures’ in 3D and played with different ways of animating them using formulaic deformers to give a feel of mathematical art. 

"We also enjoyed projecting 2D designs on the 3D human figure so that different parts of the form are picked out depending on what geometric animation is being projected on them."