Introduction

What differentiates you from your competition? How do you stay current, forecast evolving needs and measure success?

Adaptability, a wide toolset, and a deep, versatile roster of digital artists and technologists allow us to create bespoke workflows for our clients.

Workflow innovation has always been a key differentiator for Chapeau. Rather than ask our clients to shape their creative to our pipeline, Chapeau shapes our pipeline to the creative. When our competitors were investing in heavy, platform-specific CG pipelines, Chapeau was investing in a lighter footprint with smaller, more powerful, highly adaptive systems for high-end photoreal CG. We brought VFX, Graphics, and Editorial to set before virtual production became a phenomenon.

Our foundation in Visual Effects has served us well, weaving the spirit of visual and technical innovation into Chapeau’s DNA.

What are you currently investing in and why?

Our people are our primary and most valuable investment. Curating right-fit teams and tech for each project requires the gimlet-eyed discernment that has always distinguished our approach. We innovate with the engineer’s capacity for creating new technologies by combining existing tools in novel ways. Our core metrics center quality and adaptability as guiding principles for evaluating new technologies. Investments in data security, remote/hybrid integrated infrastructure, and toolkit development allow Chapeau to scale quickly and efficiently to the demands of our clients’ needs and interests.

While we are responsive to and curious about trends, quality is integral to Chapeau, and no new tool or trend will go untested–and we test tools with rigor. As AI tools improve, we expect to be able to use them for faster and more compelling visual exploration and iteration, to keep pace with an ever-quickening cultural heartbeat. 

What does your business development roadmap look like? 1 year,  3 years, 5 years: What are the goals?

We aim to continue meeting the expectations of high-demand clients with a combination of artistry, ambition, and artillery (of the metaphorical variety). As the speed of human culture increases, we see value in offering our clients integrated engagement models, in which we can more seamlessly combine the creative and brand know-how of our clients with Chapeau’s deep executional expertise, to create more efficient and satisfying workflows.

We will continue to embrace tools and technology that can help us create more content for our clients, more quickly, while maintaining the high standards of quality we will continue to expect of our work.

Share a recent example of a challenging project that required problem solving and alternative approaches which was successfully executed. What were the outcomes?

Facebook Friendversary: Personalized video platform 

UNIQUE GENERATIVE VIDEO

Product Goal: Follow-up to the super-popular “Friends Day” video with a new dynamically-generated celebration of Facebook friendships that elevate users’ own content from mere assets into delightful films.

What We Made: A live-action design film (with CG and 2D animation elements) that used Chapeau’s dynamic compositing process to create “live” video files, which were turned into millions of personalized videos.

Results: When it debuted, there were more than 1 Billion “Friendversary” films made, in 35 languages. Today, more than 200,000 personalized versions of this now-iconographic video are still being rendered daily.

ADDITIONAL GENERATIVE VIDEO

What is your approach to successfully manage low budgets vs. big budgets while ensuring the same level of service and quality?

Our primary lever for managing budget-challenged projects is scope control. Quality is not a sacrifice we have ever been able to make. Efficiencies are produced at scale: by combining budgets from several smaller projects into one larger pot, we have been able to produce compelling content at a lower price per spot. As your trust in our teams grows, we can create efficiencies through time, by developing brand-and campaign-specific set-ups, templates and toolkits that support the needs of your longer-term initiatives. Finally, we offer discounts at volume, because your commitment to Chapeau will create a stabilizing effect that reduces the premiums required to support short-term, smaller-scale projects. 

Thank You