Deepspace Cyber Lore & Legend

Agency: Bluetext

Project: Four (4) epic videos for a cyber-sci-fi rebrand.

Role: Producer, Writer, Creative Director (and background vocalist?)

Year: 2024

Most cybersecurity companies try to be a four-quadrant brand. SSC does not. SSC has developed a brand to steal the hearts of its core demographic audience - cybersecurity professionals who are also middle-aged nerds having grown up in the sci-fi era.

Coordinating with its Cyber Odyssey brand story, which guides customers through their business epic, we wanted to build something that strives to feel more like a sci-fi video game trailer than a corporate B2B video.

We warmed up the hyperdrive, hit the creative throttle, and transported our viewer to a future-fantastical intergalactic universe filled with digital marauders, armadas of behemoth airships, vulnerable business outposts holding up on the edge of new alien cyber wilderness, threat hunters, planetary defense shields, infected vendor merchant ships, and soooooo much synthwave.

Cyber Odyssey Brand Essence Video

MAX Product Video

“Step into another dimension of supply chain cyber risk management.”

In January of 2024 our small, scrappy, but passionate and talented team set out on the biggest creative endeavors to date: Build an entire SSC Cyber Odyssey brand universe.

Flashback to 14-year-old me in my room drawing deepspace dark elves and listening to The Postal Service on my (anti-skip) CD player… this project felt like a dream come true. Another late night researching “dune” + “space pirates” + “HUD” concept art? Twist my arm. I can’t remember the last time I clicked past the 5th “o” in the Gooooooogle image search pagination with so much gusto.

I must admit that there were a few moments in pre-pro when this almost went off the rails because everyone on the team was geeking out on this opportunity as much as I was. Alas: budget/deadlines!

We imagined a single planetary ecosystem and stuck to it. Welcome to Kiratopia 007, the crown jewel of the commerce quadrant with its rich cyber ore deposits and three vulnerable moons.

We did some major kitbashing to deck out the SSC armada, Kiratopian outpost, and digital marauders.

And we choreographed action sequences with vehicles instead of people, so we didn’t need to rig any organic body cycles. Well, until the last video when we couldn’t help ourselves (stay tuned!).

Intergalactic Category Kings

• Intergalactic Category Kings

Intergalactic Category Kings • Intergalactic Category Kings • Intergalactic Category Kings

“The greatest supply chain cyber risk management heroes in the galaxy.”

Video #3 / Video #4 (in progress)

Digital Fluff

Reflecting on a project with so much HUD/FUI animations, it's the endlessly intricate details - the "digital fluff" as I call it - that makes the difference.

Doing it right means the viewer should notice all of it in general, but none of it specifically. Even less on mobile.

Hours and hours of After Effects work just for technical je ne sais quoi. Micro effects with subliminally macro impact.

So to all you motion designers out there crafting your own forms of digital sprezzatura - you should brag about it more!