Ecobee

Tendril was called upon to create a part product launch and part brand anthem film for ecobee.

ecobee is a smart home company that makes intuitive and beautiful smart thermostats. This year the company challenged itself to elevate its creative expression and introduce its latest innovation – the new ecobee SmartThermostat with voice control. We were approached to help ecobee enhance their visual communication and create a film to convey ecobeeʼs mission to make it easy and affordable for homeowners to reduce their environmental footprint while enhancing the way they experience comfort.

We explored visual representations of the Ecobee SmartThermostat’s effect on both the home and the environment while showcasing its sleek engineering. The product is displayed like a jewel, a dark reflective stone with beautiful highlights that romance its crisp edges. A key creative challenge was visualizing invisible forces and representing them abstractly and artistically while conceptually tying them back to the narrative. With everything being so subjective, it was paramount that we created the right mood and feel.

We had some simulation in nearly every shot; it was a fun technical challenge to animate these magical dynamic objects realistically, even though the viewer is consuming them through a stylized lens. We produced many complex setups and custom tools to simulate cloth, rigid bodies, recursive growth, branching, and foliage. This was one of our favourite projects, as we were able to harmonize our love of tech and nature.