Idris Elba and John Cena are reunited in Heads of State, a throwback action-comedy directed by Ilya Naishuller for Amazon MGM Studios. Supporting the action, we delivered a range of bespoke screen graphics and visual elements that enhanced the film’s grounded yet tech-forward aesthetic. Working across multiple sequences, the team designed and composited interfaces and motion graphics for key environments including the Surveillance Van, News Channel segments, Ilyushin radar systems, cockpit instruments, and a speech-recognition suitcase. Each asset was crafted to support the story world with authentic detail and cinematic polish, blending narrative function with visual sophistication.
Mi6 Agent Noel Bisset (Prianka Chopra) and her team are in Spain at the famous ‘La Tomatina’ festival in Bruñol, Spain in an attempt to track down Viktor Gradov (Paddy Constatine). With multiple lookalikes out on partrol, the team use facial surveillance to help them catch their man.
The American President’s limousine, nicknamed “The Beast” is a heavily armoured bullet-proof (even bazooka-proof) vehicle that takes centre stage during a high-octane chase through Trieste. We designed the navigation UI and the central control panel accessible to passengers.
Distinct from the look of the American Presidential plane, the instruments and digital UI of the Ilyshin were designed to be more industrial, rugged, Cold War-style aesthetic to emphesise its use as military and weapons transport.
A key beat in the plot, Air Force One is shot down over Belarus. Breaking this story and the events that follow, we designed realistic TV news graphics to present show the world’s reaction to the presumed deaths of President Will Derringer (John Cena) and Prime Minister Sam Clarke (Idris Elba). We designed and composited contemporary Smart TV UI and News Graphics that resemble real BBC and ABC News to ground the action and comedy in present day reality.
Elizabeth Kirk (Carla Gugino) uses voice and retina authorisation to reboot the encrypted ECHELON global surveillance system only to find Gradov and his hacker ally Arthur Hammond have successfully hacked in to the system. Illustrating this pivotal story beat, we matched the vocal performance of Carlo Gugino to an audio wave graphic to accurately depict her interaction with the system.
