Crunchy by Nature

Bespoke High-Speed Mechanical Rigs for Nature Valley’s “Crunchy by Nature”

MACHINESHOP engineered highly technical practical special effects for the global advertising campaign “Crunchy by Nature” by Nature Valley. Developed alongside top-tier creative partners, the high-energy commercial relies on a seamless blend of phantom-speed cinematography and tactile physics to visualize the brand’s iconic crunching texture in-camera.

Our workshop built dedicated physical rigs to manipulate food items and set pieces with absolute visual precision. The embedded commercial and behind-the-scenes videos capture the intricate mechanical prototyping, spring integrations, and millisecond-precise timing required to execute these energetic reveals flawlessly on cue.

Advanced Tabletop Engineering & Practical Food FX

Capturing highly photogenic fragmentation and motion for high-speed macro food cinematography demands strict mechanical calculations, heavy-duty springs, and precise synchronization with high-speed camera tracking paths:

• Bespoke Spring-Loaded Mechanical Rigs: Custom-engineering discrete, high-tension spring platforms built to instantly fling debris or drop props on a live trigger cue.
• Synchronized Tabletop Movement FX: Designing low-profile, rapid-release mechanics hidden entirely beneath the scenic layers to generate physical reactions across the frame.
• High-Velocity Air and Wind Dynamics: Positioning compact variable-speed fans and air movers from our wind hire department to realistically blast loose crumbs.
• Flawless Take-to-Take Resets: Engineering modular, easily cleanable mechanical trays that allowed our on-set technicians to perform rapid resets between takes, keeping the studio crew on schedule.