“The Piccards” is based on the true story of father-son explorers Auguste and Jacques Piccard. In surreal fashion, the film reimagines the individual achievements of both men as one continuous upward journey—an odyssey across time and space—to the stratosphere and the deepest point of the ocean.

Today, the story of the Piccards goes largely untold in the United States. But their cultural impact is undeniable. As the first man to reach the stratosphere, Auguste Piccard paved the way for all subsequent commercial air travel. Additionally, he and his son Jacques have inspired well-known cultural characters like Tintin’s Professor Calculus and Star Trek’s Captain Jean-Luc Picard.

The film required eight weeks of dedicated post work, with the intention of communicating a single journey through stratospheric skies, space and ocean depths. To achieve this and deliver the most visceral film possible, the team used a mix of custom CG elements, matte painting, library assets and live-action elements blended together to compose a heightened-reality version of the sky, space and ocean environments.