Amazing in Motion is a set of global projects to celebrate the more imaginative and creative side of the Lexus brand. ‘Swarm’ is the second project in the series; it takes existing quadrotor technology out of its typical engineering environment and moves it into real world settings. The result is a playful film of quads exploring the city at night while we sleep.

The Lexus Campaign is based around developing existing technology to articulate “Amazing in Motion”. Quadrotors are at the apex of motion technology: they're fast, agile, precise and packed with technology.

Quadrotor technology had only ever delivered precision flight under laboratory conditions. Our enormous challenge was to give quadrotors human characteristics and personality, engineering their technology to work on location and in changing weather conditions.

Quadrotors are controlled via motion capture, so each and every movement must be plotted via a computer program that tells the Quadrotors where to go in 3D space and how to get there. Quadrotors are only as graceful as you program them to be. Like animation, each and every frame of their flight must be minutely plotted to create a flowing piece of motion film.

Teaming up with the robotics company, we brought in character animators to choreograph flight trajectories for the vehicles and give them character and expressive movement. Locations were minutely measured in advance, to plot them and plan flight paths around objects at location. We designed a quadrotor that combined nimble, aero-dynamic flying capabilities with touches of human character and design touches inspired by Lexus cars.

We had to overcome the logistical problems of animating the Quadrotor’s movement in London, rehearsing them in Philadephia, and shooting them on location in Vancouver.

The final film is the result of minute pre-planning and successfully combining a variety of technology, animation and film making disciplines, including an original score recorded live with a 56 piece orchestra.