SLB Lift Performance: 3D Animation and Live Action for Artificial Lift

Putting a cross-section of a wellbore and a room full of engineers into the same 90 seconds was the problem SLB set for its Lift Performance offering. As the Houston studio behind the film, Motion Giraffx had to make underground physics and above-ground collaboration read as one story for production engineers, asset managers and well operators.

The film opens on a 3D wellbore while the narrator asks how an artificial lift system can keep up when conditions change in seconds. An ESP design interface scores a configuration at 99.9 percent, and a customer delivery app tracks a shipment of ESP equipment through to signed paperwork. Live-action footage then takes over inside SLB Performance Live delivery centers, where experts watch pump data, autonomous adjustments and fluid analysis. The close ties together AI, physics and domain expertise.

The craft call was to give each stage of the lifecycle its own visual language: CG for what happens downhole, screen capture for the software, live footage for the people. The cut from tracking a shipment to a staffed control room is the hinge, the point where planning hands over to partnership.

When one story crosses from engineering to human response, video production that mixes animation and real footage is where we would begin.