At the heart of our spec ad The Signature, a self-produced film around Lacoste’s golf world, not commissioned by the brand, there’s one shot no one forgets: seen from above, a crocodile drawn on the green. Not a logo composited in post-production. 10,000 real golf balls, laid one by one.
The crocodile by the numbers
- 10,000 golf balls, exactly;
- nearly 15 metres wide, to be perfectly legible on the drone shots;
- over 3 hours of work for this final version.
The vertical making-of video, shot during the build:
Why for real, and not with AI or VFX?
At a time when anything can be generated in seconds, the question deserves to be asked, and the answer is in the film itself.
The Signature is about why repetition and consistency matter so much in sport: the same gesture, done again and again, until it becomes a signature. Laying 10,000 balls one by one, for hours, is exactly that discipline. The making-of is part of the story the film tells, an ad about repetition, made through repetition.
Had the crocodile been generated by AI or added in VFX, the shot might exist. But there would be nothing behind it: no behind the scenes, no proof, no story. By doing it for real, the act of production becomes content in its own right, and it says something we deeply believe at the studio: doing, rather than thinking about doing.
Craft as a stance
It’s also a methodological conviction. A spec ad is an exercise with no brief and no safety net: everything you show, you chose to make. Choosing the real, its constraints, its time, its weather, means choosing images that carry a weight generation doesn’t have yet. And with style.
The final film is on the project page: The Signature, Lacoste spec ad, director’s cut.
A brand, an idea to build for real? Let’s talk.