Ai & 3d Hybrid Product Film
Puma Speedcat Africa - A Mile in Our Shoes
Puma Speedcat was born from the racetrack. A low-profile driving shoe made for speed, control, and precision. For this campaign, we wanted to take that history somewhere new. Not just show the shoe, but let the shoe move through time. From motorsport to street culture. From object to icon. From archive to future.
The film became a journey of transformation. A visual loop where the Speedcat travels through eras, landscapes, textures, and cultural shifts, constantly changing but never losing its original shape.
From racetrack to street culture
The Speedcat has always carried two identities. It comes from Formula One, but it lives far beyond the track. That tension became the foundation for the campaign. We wanted the film to feel like a product story, but also like a cultural memory moving at speed.
The narrative starts by establishing the shoe as an object of performance. Low, precise, built for control. From there, the film opens into a more atmospheric world where the Speedcat moves through fire, rain, city, road, body, sound and motion. Each environment adds a new layer to the shoe’s identity.
Rather than treating the history of the Speedcat as a timeline, we treated it as a loop. The racetrack becomes the road. The road becomes the street. The street becomes culture. Culture pulls the shoe back into motion.
A journey through Africa
The visual research moved through North African atmosphere, contemporary street culture, motorsport references, sub-Saharan rhythm, city textures, desert light, rain, dust, heat and night. These influences were not applied as decoration. They helped define the pace, tone and transformation of the campaign.
The result is a film that feels rooted in place, but not locked to one location. Africa is treated as movement. A living visual system. Something layered, energetic and constantly changing.
The hero’s journey of a shoe
Underneath the film is a simple story structure. The Speedcat is introduced, challenged, transformed and released back into the world.
It starts with the product. Then the shoe enters the journey. It moves through pressure, speed, atmosphere and culture. It finds a way through. By the end, the film returns to the beginning, creating an endless loop that echoes the original racetrack.
That loop became one of the strongest ideas in the piece. The film does not simply end. It keeps moving. The last frame feeds back into the first, turning the Speedcat’s journey into a continuous circuit of reinvention.
Hybrid Fidelity
The campaign was built through a mix of live action footage, 3D scanning, Gaussian splats, photogrammetry, AI image generation, CGI, motion design, compositing, upscaling, up-detailing, photomanipulation and cinematic grading. The process was highly technical, but the goal was never to make the technology the story.
The technology was there to serve the image. To make the shoe feel physical, strange, fast and alive. Some frames are grounded in captured footage. Others are rebuilt through 3D and AI. The final film sits between real and synthetic without needing to explain itself too loudly.
Process and direction
The campaign began inside a large visual research and planning board. We mapped the Speedcat’s history, product details, motorsport origins, cultural references, African locations, sound ideas, transformation points and timeline structure before moving into production.
The board became a working system. It helped us hold the commercial needs of the campaign while still building a film with atmosphere and progression. Product shots, racing references, POV sequences, city textures, scanned assets, AI explorations and edit rhythms all lived in one place.
That process gave the project its shape. It allowed the film to move quickly without becoming random. Every shift had a purpose. Every visual change had to carry the shoe forward.
Recognition and Project details
Puma Speedcat Africa was featured by Motionographer, one of the motion design industry’s long-standing platforms, which has been covering and supporting the global motion design community since 2006.
The feature recognised the campaign as a hybrid creative project combining AI, motion design, cinematic direction, 3D scanning, Gaussian splats and advanced post-production craft.
Client: Puma
Campaign: Puma Speedcat Africa
Format: Campaign film
Discipline: Creative direction, art direction, motion design, CGI, AI generation, compositing, VFX and grading
Created by Grant Franck and Jossi Afargan
3D Scanning, Gaussian Splats and 3D Animation by Jossi Afargan
Grading by Grant Franck
Vocals by Daniel Mboweni
Music Composition by Nicholas Mboweni
Sound Design by Nicholas Mboweni, Senkhane Montsitsi and Greg Canning
Final Mix by Greg Canning and Nicholas Mboweni