On most product launches, the CGI-or-live-action question gets answered by habit — "that's how we shot the last one" — rather than by what this product, this timeline and this budget actually call for. Made late, it quietly limits what's creatively possible and inflates cost. Made early, it becomes one of the most useful decisions in the whole project.
It's a production decision, not a creative afterthought
Format isn't a styling choice you layer on at the end. It determines your schedule, where the risk sits, and how far a single asset can stretch across a campaign. The teams that decide well treat it as a strategic call made alongside the brief — not something the edit inherits by default.
When CGI is the better call
Computer-generated imagery wins by default when the product isn't ready to shoot. If the hardware only exists as a prototype, isn't available in enough units, or needs to appear in situations that are unsafe, impossible or ruinously expensive to film, a 3D build is the only sane route.
It also wins on reusability. Once a product is modelled and lit, it can be re-rendered at any angle, in any colourway, on any background, for as many cutdowns as the campaign needs — without a reshoot. For consumer-tech and automotive brands running a launch across film, social, OOH and retail, that flexibility often pays for the model several times over.
The trade-offs are real: lead time to build and light the asset, and the fact that photoreal CGI at extreme close range takes genuine craft. Cheap CGI is easy to spot, and audiences are less forgiving than they used to be.
When live-action is the better call
Anything that leans on human performance, real texture and happy accidents usually reads better shot for real. Skin, fabric, food, weather, a crowded street, a specific cultural moment — these are expensive to fake convincingly in 3D and effortless to capture on set. Live-action also tends to move faster once you're rolling; the risk shifts earlier, to casting, locations and the shoot day itself.
The hybrid answer most launches actually need
In practice, very few of our launch films are purely one or the other. The common pattern is to shoot the people and the environment live, then composite a CG hero product into the frame wherever pixel-perfect accuracy matters. Done well, the seam is invisible — you get believable human warmth and a product that's always on-brand.
The decision we push clients toward early is simple: separate the shots that are about the product from the shots that are about mood, people and place. That split usually reveals the format before the storyboard is even finished.
A quick test to decide
- Does the final product physically exist, in enough units, right now? If no, lean CGI.
- Will you need many angles, colourways or versions? If yes, CGI pays back fast.
- Does the story depend on real people, texture or place? If yes, shoot it live.
- Do only a few shots need product accuracy? If so, go hybrid — shoot live, composite the hero.
What it means for budget and timeline
CGI front-loads the effort: more time in build and look-dev, less exposure to weather, availability and reshoots. Live-action back-loads flexibility: quick to capture, harder to change once you've wrapped. Neither is inherently cheaper — the honest comparison is total cost across every deliverable the campaign needs, not the cost of a single hero film.
The bottom line
Decide format when you write the brief, not when you storyboard. Map which shots need product truth and which need human truth, and the right approach — CGI, live-action, or a clean hybrid — usually becomes obvious before a single frame is shot or rendered.