Hutchinson Blackbird - 2026 lineup
motion comparison capsules
Made with Houdini, Redshift and After Effects.
I was commissioned by french post-production studio seizeneuvieme to make three short capsules for the release of the 2026 lineup of Hutchinson Blackbird bicycle tires.
Here is a short case study.
Hutchinson is a historic french bicycles tires manufacturer, the Blackbird is their fastest tire and they're making it available in two larger sizes in 2026. Within their launch content strategy were three "comparison capsules" whose aim was to compare the 28mm variant to the new 32 and 34mm models.
Each capsule would focus on one aspect: speed, comfort and grip. The scripts were already outlined in the brief so I translated them in storyboard and animatics.
In parallel I developed the look by taking inspiration from the moodboard provided by seizeneuvieme and some of my own references. At that stage I rebuild the tires from scratch, made the textures and iterated on the lighting to set the tone for the film to fit the product: minimalist, sharp and high tech.
I build various environments: straight and curved, asphalt and cobblestones. And we set a visual language for some graphical elements that would serve the comparison to be added straight within the 3D scenes as projected light or traces. There are also text elements integrated to the shots to provide context on the comparative aspect of these capsules; the texts themselves were decided by the Hutchinson team.
