Safran Furious | Aerospace 3D film
Cinematic 3D film for the Safran group. Art direction in service of aerospace and defence high technology.
Safran operates across three divisions — propulsion, equipment and interiors — each with its own culture and communication challenges. The group needed 3 distinct corporate films, one per division, yet sharing immediate visual coherence. The viewer must recognise Safran at a glance, regardless of which division is featured.
The requirement was twofold: technical precision — engineers must see themselves in the images — and aesthetic ambition — the production quality must rival the best audiovisual work in the global aerospace sector. No lukewarm corporate film. High technology told with the rigour of a David Fincher film.
Our art director designed a three-tier art direction system. Group level: shared colour palette (bluish steel, deep black, technical white), common typography, motion identity. Division level: a specific accent colour (orange for propulsion, blue for equipment, green for interiors) and dedicated graphic patterns. Sequence level: freedom in framing and rhythm adapted to the subject.
The technique of visualising invisible processes is at the heart of the project. How do you film engine thrust? The resistance of a composite material? The precision of micrometre-level assembly? Nexia developed a visual language that makes the invisible visible: extreme slow-motion on stress tests, macro photography of component textures, aerodynamic flow animations as overlays.
The edit relies on a split-screen and continuous camera movement approach. Two visual realities coexist on screen: the human gesture and the technical data, the factory and the sky, the component and the finished aircraft. This constant duality reflects Safran's philosophy — high technology in service of humanity.
3 films delivered in 12 weeks, shot across 5 industrial sites in France and Europe. Each film runs between 2 and 4 minutes. The video identity is immediately recognisable: group coherence is maintained, divisional specificities are distinct.
Safran deploys the films for institutional communication, across digital channels and at the Paris Air Show. The films become the group's visual reference for future productions — a standard Nexia designed from A to Z. The communications department formally adopted the art direction system as the group's official video charter.
How this kind of project is run.
Every project led by Nexia Studio follows the same production method, adapted to the deliverable at hand. We start with a rigorous brief phase, generally structured by ZIA, our AI creative project lead who formalises expectations, constraints, budget and timeline. This step determines the success of the entire project.
Then comes exploration : this is where generative AI shows its real value. Our art directors use Midjourney, Flux, Seedance, Kling and Runway to produce dozens of visual tracks in a few hours, where a traditional process would be limited to three or four explored directions. The exploration volume helps eliminate false good ideas quickly and concentrate creative energy on directions worth pursuing.
The human art direction phase then takes over. Selection, refinement, arbitration, typography, composition : this is where taste makes the difference. AI explores, the art director decides. Without this human step, the result would be indistinguishable from any other AI agency.
Finally, production : development, animation, compositing, post-production, asset preparation. This is the longest, most technical phase. Depending on the project nature, it can mobilise the Web, Motion or Graphic discipline, sometimes all three. The most frequently mobilised services include art direction, AI production, brand film, visual identity, WebGL 3D and virtual humans.
Nexia Studio is a distributed team based in Paris, Nice, Aix-en-Provence and Sophia Antipolis. This setup lets us assemble the right talent for each project without heavy structure. To start a similar project, contact the studio or kick off a brief with ZIA. Human response guaranteed within 24 working hours.