Saba Studios Electrifies VICTUS at OTC 2019

Weatherford challenged Saba Studios to produce an electrifying digital media campaign to launch their latest intelligent Managed Pressure Drilling (MPD), Victus.

Victus is Weatherford’s premiere offering of intelligent managed pressure drilling. It integrates rig equipment for machine-to-machine communication, real-time analysis of downhole conditions, and rapid automated responses from a central location. This technology deserved a campaign which would make an impactful statement, so we jumped on it.

There were two main components of the campaign which we needed to produce. First, a self-running animation which would be a hard-hitting, jaw-dropping, leave you wanting more kind of video. We decided to shoot some live action shots of the driller, as he grabbed the joystick on the drilling chair. We thought it was important to show him ‘integrating’ with the artificial intelligence (AI) of the MPD system. We conveyed this through an ‘energy surge’, spawning from the joystick and running up through the driller’s arm and connecting to his brain. It was certainly a cinematic moment 🙂

From that point forward, the video is animation-driven, showing what happens behind the scenes when the A.I. takes over and how it mitigates influx, regulates pressure and returns to business as usual.

The second component would be a handful of super cool interactive touch-screens. This experience would allow the visitors to interact with the presentation to learn more about the product features and offerings. We thought it would be cool if we created a life-size hand print, which the viewers could walk up to and place their hand on the print (like a secret service agent gaining access to top secret information). Placing their hand on the hand print would activate the screen through an ‘electrical charge’ and launch the presentation. Indeed it was very cool to watch people interact and ‘activate’ each screen.

We were happy to see that OTC was very busy this year and it was awesome to watch the Victus campaign launch with huge success!