Celebrity Cruises: The Making of EDGE

For Celebrity Cruises’ first new ship in almost a decade, they set out to transform the cruising industry. Celebrity Edge shattered the mold of the luxury cruise experience, combining technological marvels with the trappings of a luxury boutique hotel and re-orienting the onboard experience to maximize enjoyment of the destination.

We were challenged by Celebrity to create a video series that was just as extraordinary as the ship itself, to help build excitement for the ship’s the launch over a two-year period during its construction. The videos were to lead the charge in generating pre-bookings and creating a strong impression on industry press.

One of the first things that leapt out at us from the brief was the brand’s focus on designers and the creative process.

Celebrity recruited celebrity interior designers (Nate Berkus), the architect of the Burj al Arab (Tom Wright) and a Member of the British Empire and design media mogul (Kelly Hoppen, MBE), among many others, and gave them the creative freedom to bring their distinct aesthetic styles to the project.

As an intentional strategy to completely re-invent the look and feel of the ship, no designer had ever done nautical work before- the brand liked to say they were going for a ship “designed by all the wrong people.”

We immediately latched on to this bold decision as the basis for our creative approach. We thought of high-end craftsman documentaries, such as Netflix’s Chef’s Table, that had established an engaging way to involve audiences in the inner workings of the creative process.

We wanted to create something that put a human face to the huge and monolithic structure and paint the ship as a passion project on the behalf of its creators rather than a product of corporate investment and industry.

One of our key focus points was on mood. We wanted beautiful cinematography and a carefully crafted formal tone instead of something that felt like a consumer travel video. We wanted the film craft of the series to reflect the immense creative accomplishments of the designers.

We were also tasked with selling something that didn’t yet exist for us to shoot, which required 3D renderings. We were careful to align the aesthetics of the 3D space with our cinematographic principles, creating images that not only indicated layouts and floorplans but evoked the feeling of being present in the space.
Over the course of two years, we crisscrossed the Atlantic to film the ship as was being built in Northern France, to pick the brains of its creators, and to search for narrative angles to help us share this story with the world.

The project resulted in 10 videos that covered different areas of the ship and one 30-minute comprehensive behind-the-scenes TV special.
The series has yielded over 1.5 billion impressions worldwide for the client. It has been lauded as a new standard for the industry for both its storytelling-driven approach and the quality of its 3D work. The Food and Beverage video specifically broke company records for onboard reservations after its release.

Artex was responsible for the conceptualization, treatment, production, and post-production for this project.

For our work on this campaign, Artex was honored to be awarded a Best in Show for the category of Online Videos at the 4th District American Advertising Federation ADDY Awards in 2019.

We’re currently partnering with Celebrity to help them create thoughtful and innovative content for the next revolutionary ship in the Edge class, due to arrive in 2020.