Creep Helps Debenhams Deliver Christmas

To Deliver Christmas for Debenhams, Creep combined cutting-edge AI workflows, real-time virtual production, and traditional CGI and VFX techniques to accelerate production, expand creative possibilities, and deliver a campaign that was both technically and artistically ambitious in under eight weeks.

Concept Development

Concepting began with AI, using a curated dataset of stylistic and textural references provided by agency Creatives to establish the project’s visual direction.

Leveraging AI at this stage allowed Creep to explore a wide range of looks and ideas rapidly, helping the client visualise the final outcome much earlier in the process and providing a strong creative foundation for production.

Previsualisation in Unreal Engine

A scale-accurate previs was built in Unreal Engine, enabling early decisions on camera movement, composition, shot timing, and edit rhythm.

Unreal’s native modelling tools were used to construct the street environment, guided by AI concepts, storyboards, and the director’s animatic. The hero floats, which were being developed concurrently with the previs, were converted from 2D AI-generated images into low-poly 3D. These were integrated directly into the Unreal scene, ensuring a constantly updated previs as creative development evolved.

On-Set Real-Time Integration

On set, Creep worked with tracking specialists All Groovy VFX to push the boundaries of real-time previs and on-set integration.

All Groovy provided a specialist camera-tracking system attached to the principal camera, streaming full position, orientation, and lens metadata live into Creep's Unreal Engine previs. This allowed us to overlay the previs in real time on set, giving the director, DOP, and crew immediate feedback on framing, action, and visual composition against our virtual street world and floats. Intricate rig mounting, calibration and sync delivered a seamless match between the physical camera and the virtual one in Unreal. The captured tracking data was also exported for select shots, accelerating post-production workflows.

3D and AI Asset Creation

Once previs was locked, a CG team moved into full production in Maya, modelling and refining the hero floats and street environment to final-shot quality. Early guide geometry from AI concept was used only as a starting point, with artists spending significant time on hand-built modelling, surfacing, texturing and look development to ensure assets held up across multiple shots, angles and formats.

Crowds, street dressing, balloons, fireworks and atmospheric elements were carefully crafted and placed by hand to add scale, depth and energy to the parade. This stage involved extensive iteration and attention to detail, ensuring visual consistency and impact across a large volume of complex shots.

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Compositing and Grade

All elements were brought together in Nuke, where compositors focused on precise integration of CG and live-action plates. Lighting, shadows, depth, atmosphere and motion were carefully matched shot by shot, with significant hands-on refinement to ensure the virtual environment felt grounded and cohesive.

The final grade was completed in DaVinci Resolve, shaping contrast, colour and tone across the campaign and delivering a consistent, polished finish for TV, cinema, OOH, online and in-store outputs.

Final Thoughts

While real-time tools and new technologies helped streamline parts of the pipeline, the campaign was ultimately driven by human craft, judgement and long hours of hands-on work. From modelling and animation through to compositing and grade, it was the experience and attention to detail of the artists that brought the world to life - delivering a bold, festive campaign at speed without compromising on quality.