DJI Mavic 2
For the launch of DJI's Mavic 2 drone, SuperBlimp was brought in to design and build the film's world from the ground up. A cinematic environment for the drone to perform in: a future-human laboratory of brushed steel, volumetric light, and robotic arms, all designed to make the product feel like the hero of a much bigger story.SuperBlimp handled concept development, environment design, CG production, VFX compositing, and finish across the full sequence.
The approach
The brief was a launch film for a new drone, but the creative opportunity was larger: to build a world that made the Mavic 2 feel like the centre of something bigger. Rather than frame the product in empty space or a generic studio environment, we proposed a fully designed cinematic setting — a claustrophobic future-human laboratory, half cathedral, half machine room, built around the drone. The environment had to be beautiful but also functional: clean enough to showcase the product, atmospheric enough to give it weight, and flexible enough to support a range of shots and angles.
The craft
Working from DJI’s manufacturer CAD data, we built an exact digital replica of the Mavic 2 and rigged it for complete control, right down to the rotation of individual blades. This gave us a fully-flexible hero asset that could be manipulated precisely across the full range of shots. Around it, we developed the laboratory environment from the ground up: concept art, architectural blocking, interior design passes, and final lookdev. A set of robotic arms was designed and built from scratch to interact with the drone, going through multiple design iterations before we locked the final version. Everything was rendered, composited, and finished in-house.
CG Breakdowns
Mavic 2 Drone Asset Development
Concept Development - Corridor
We developed two concept directions for the corridor and laboratory, working from a wide reference pool to lock down the look. Concept 01 leaned into a classical “future-human” technology aesthetic — focused, claustrophobic, with smoke-white laboratory doors and the feel of advanced visitors arriving from a more developed era. Concept 02 pushed toward something more alien and omnipresent: a cathedral-scale space built from clean geometric lines, massive simple shapes, and heavy volumetric fog.
Concept Development - Laboratory
With Concept 01 selected, we moved into rough blocking for the laboratory. This first pass locked down proportions and spatial feel, giving us a foundation to develop the final design with more specificity and detail.
Concept Development - Robot Arms
We explored a range of design approaches for the robotic arms, testing different silhouettes and mechanical languages before narrowing down the direction that best matched the laboratory’s tone.
Approved Robot Design Development
From the approved direction, we evolved the blocking into a refined final design, iterating on proportions, material language, and mechanical detail until it felt at home in the world we’d built.
Credits
Credits
Client: DJI
SuperBlimp’s role: Full production. Concept development, CG, VFX, and finish.
Art Directors: Antonio Milo, Fabrizio Fioretti · Executive Producer: Tom Ireson · CG Leads: Antonio Milo, Fabrizio Fioretti · VFX / CG Artists: Francesco Buttarelli, Nunzio Bitetti, Iskander Mellakh, David Rencsenyi · 3D Animators: Matt Morris, Nicolai Marcher · Compositing: Antonio Milo, Fabrizio Fioretti, Nunzio Bitetti
