Fictional brand · personal example/2026
tacet
A dark 3D launch spot for tacet, fictional graphite earbuds: a product chosen among three candidates, lit like a tech product and refined over six rounds.
(01) Overview
tacet is a personal example I made to sell my launch kit: a vertical reel that announces a tech product and ends with Mystic's close. The brand and its specs are invented; the name comes from music scores, where “tacet” tells an instrument to stay silent. The earbuds' form is an existing design, credited below, recoloured to graphite; the light, the story, the type and the edit are mine.
Client
Fictional brand · personal example
Year
2026
Services
Motion, 3D
Deliverables
3D launch spot 9:16, Product selection, Lighting and materials, Kinetic type intro, Six iterations
(A) The Challenge
Dark product spots depend on light. A black case on a black background disappears unless its edges catch a highlight, and too much light turns it into grey plastic. The story also had to work without a voice: noise cancelling, spatial audio and battery, a few seconds each, on the beat.
(B) The Approach
- 01
A lid to open
Three candidates went through the same test: two over-ear headphones and the earbuds with their case. The earbuds won: the case gives the spot a mechanism to show, a lid that opens. They were finished in matte graphite.
- 02
Light that draws the edges
A near-black studio lost the shapes. The second test put long soft strips on both sides for rim light, a dim ceiling and a touch of front fill: that is the light the spot keeps.
- 03
Silence before the product
Before the product appears, a ribbon of noise words waves and collapses until the line lies flat, «Apagalo.», and turns into the seam of the case.
- 04
Four cuts, three counters
After trying a continuous version, the opening went back to four short cuts with the product filling the frame. Each feature lands on its image and counter: −45 dB among rings of sound, 360° in a sphere of points, battery in a ring of light.
candidate products tested before choosing one
rounds of frames, from v1 to v6
40 beats at 85 BPM
(02) The Product
Choosing the product
Two headphones and one pair of earbuds, each shown from six angles on the same neutral sheet. The earbuds came with a case and a lid to open, the best mechanism for a launch. They arrived with scuffs, a colour finish and another brand's marks; the right tile shows them recoloured to graphite.
Light for a black product
The first look test was all shadow: edges vanished and a white floor blew out the bottom of the frame. The second lit the studio that reflects in the case instead, two long soft strips at the sides for rim light, a dim ceiling and a little front fill, so the graphite reads as matte with metal edges.
From noise to silence
Before the product appears, words of city noise shake over a growing sound wave, then go out one by one until the line lies flat and becomes the seam of the case. Each feature gets a number and a visual: −45 dB, 360° over a field of points, hours of battery. The brand was still called halo.
A new name and light inside the case
halo became tacet, a word from music scores that means the instrument stays silent. The noise turned into a ribbon of words that waves across the frame and collapses into the line, and the open case got a soft light inside so the buds read against the dark.
An opening in four cuts
From a second round of references about case openings: short cuts, the product filling the frame, speed that changes from fast to slow motion and back, constant rotation and blur. The hinge up close, the buds rising toward the camera, the case spinning and braking, one bud shooting off while the other crosses out of focus.
Rings, counters and the close
v5 gave each feature its image, sound rings around the bud, a sphere of points, a ring of light that fills, and tested a continuous opening with crossfades; the final keeps the images and the four cuts. v6 tuned the handover from the brand shot to Mystic's bridge, the case lifting out of frame as the purple background takes over.
(03) The Outcome
A 28 s vertical spot, 40 beats at 85 BPM, timed so the noise and the silence fill the last two bars of the intro and the lid opens with the track's first strong entrance. The idea of the product, silence, is told before the product appears, and each feature lands on a counter that is easy to remember: −45 dB, 360° and 36 h.
3D model: «Nothing BUDS 2 PRO» by zhe_kan (Sketchfab), CC BY 4.0, recoloured.