Camcevi HCP prostate cancer campaign. Conceptual sports photography with photorealistic CGI environments, animated cinemagraphs, and a twelve-image HCP library. Full-service pharmaceutical advertising production by Dale May.
CAMCEVI | PHARMA
Services: Concept Development, Studio Photography, Location Photography, Photorealistic CGI Environments, Cinemagraph Animation, Retouching & Post-Production | HCP Pharmaceutical Advertising Campaign
Simple is right at hand.
THE CONCEPT
Camcevi (leuprolide) is a 6-month, long-acting GnRH agonist for advanced prostate cancer. As the first and only no-mix, prefilled, ready-to-inject subcutaneous therapy in its class, Camcevi simplifies clinical workflow significantly. The syringe requires no preparation. It is ready to go exactly as delivered.
The creative brief from Proximyl Health made that simplicity the entire campaign. The concept: show healthcare professionals taking an easy shot, in the most literal sense possible. A urologist drives a golf ball toward a hole so large it is impossible to miss. A nurse lines up a hockey slap shot against a net so big you could drive a Zamboni through it. A doctor sinks a billiard ball into a pocket the size of a swimming pool. The headline: "Simple is right at hand." The imagery communicates the ease of the Camcevi syringe without a single word of clinical language.
The campaign required three conceptual sports shots, each featuring both a doctor and a nurse version, producing six hero images in total. Three of those six needed to be delivered as animated cinemagraphs for digital and HCP platform placements. The second half of the campaign was a twelve-image pharma library shoot with doctors and patients in a real medical setting, with all branding elements handled through a custom compositing system built for ongoing agency use.
THE CHALLENGE
The conceptual shoot required building three photorealistic CGI environments to be combined with studio portraits of our talent, each depicting a sports setting with exaggerated scale elements that don't exist in the real world. A golf landscape with an oversized hole. A hockey arena with an oversized net. A billiard hall with an oversized pocket. Every environment had to be convincingly real while simultaneously being physically impossible, which is a specific and demanding target for CGI work.
The cinemagraph requirement added a layer of complexity that had to be planned before a single element was modeled. Every CGI environment needed to be built with animation in mind, which changes how assets are constructed, layered, and rendered. Working backward from the animation deliverable while simultaneously building photorealistic stills is a discipline that requires holding both outcomes in mind at every stage of production.
The library shoot presented its own challenge: making every branded element in the frame, brochures, computer screens, packaging, and any other touchpoint the agency might update, replaceable without requiring a reshoot. The solution had to be built into the post-production files from the start, not retrofitted after delivery.
THE APPROACH
Building the CGI Environments
To maximize production efficiency, I began with existing CGI asset libraries as a foundation for the pool table and hockey stadium elements, adapting and retexturing them to match the campaign's visual requirements rather than modeling from scratch. The golf scene, which required a specific landscape with custom terrain, lighting, and environmental detail, was built entirely from the ground up. Every texture across all three environments was reworked to achieve photorealistic quality under the lighting conditions that would match the studio photography.
For the studio shoot itself, the approach was deliberately simple and practical. A blue background and white plexiglass floor stood in for the hockey ice. A wooden table covered in green paper served as the pool table surface, chosen specifically so that any light reflecting off it would match the color and quality of the fabric on the CGI pool table in post. These practical decisions on set made the CGI integration invisible in the final images.
Billiards CGI: Viewport Clay Render to Final Composite
Animating the Cinemagraphs
A cinemagraph is a still photograph in which a single isolated element moves in a seamlessly looping animation while everything else in the frame remains perfectly still. The effect is subtle, attention-holding, and distinctive, making it particularly effective for HCP digital placements where a static image might be scrolled past but a controlled, elegant loop commands attention.
Because no video was shot on the production days, every animated element in the three cinemagraphs had to be created entirely within the CGI and post-production pipeline. For the golf scene, I built a fabric simulation for the flag and keyframed it to loop seamlessly in the wind. An animated flock of birds was added to give the landscape additional life. For the hockey scene, the arena lighting was animated and mist was added to the ice surface. For the billiard scene, I used puppet warp animation to move the model's arm and pool cue through a natural stroke motion, frame by frame, from a single still photograph.
Each animation was built to loop invisibly, with no jump cut between the end of the sequence and the beginning. That seamless loop is the technical signature of a well-executed cinemagraph and the element that makes the format feel premium rather than gimmicky.
The Library Shoot: Building for the Future
The twelve-image HCP library was shot on location at a real medical facility, propped and styled to match the campaign's visual standards. The cast included a urologist, two nurses, and two male patients across a range of clinical scenarios: patient consultations, syringe preparation, computer review, phone calls, and resource material discussions.
Every branded element in the frame, brochures, computer screens, packaging, and any other campaign touchpoint held by talent or visible in the environment, was shot as a white cardboard placeholder. In post-production, each placeholder was replaced with a custom Photoshop smart object: a layered, perspective-corrected, shadow-and-reflection-aware composite that allows the agency to update the branded artwork at any point in the future by simply dropping a flat image layer into the PSD file. The smart object handles all of the warping, shadowing, and integration automatically. The agency can change the brochure design, update the campaign artwork, or swap in new regulatory copy without any additional retouching work.
This system was designed specifically for pharmaceutical campaigns, where branded materials are subject to regulatory updates, label changes, and ongoing medical affairs review. Building the flexibility into the original post-production files protects the client's investment in the photography indefinitely.
Smart Object System: Updating a Computer Screen in Post
Creating Choices in Post
During the library shoot, we photographed talent both with and without masks, creating options for the agency to choose from in post. When the client identified their preferred image, a frame where the nurse's pose and eyes were exactly right, they wanted to see a version with blue rubber gloves added and the mask removed. Rather than scheduling a reshoot, I solved both requests in post.
For the gloves, I photographed blue rubber gloves on my wife Beth's hands to capture accurate edge detail and natural finger wrinkles. The bulk of each glove was created by carefully blurring the model's actual hands and color-correcting them to match the glove material. For the mask removal, I reviewed the full shoot's outtakes and found a frame where the lower half of the nurse's face was clearly visible and matched the angle of the hero image. That frame was composited in seamlessly. The result was indistinguishable from a single captured image and required no additional talent days, no studio booking, and no production cost beyond retouching time. The BTS animation below shows the before and after of both changes.
Gloves & Mask: Creating Choices in Post
THE IMAGES
Golf
Golf Cinemagraph
Hockey
Hockey Cinemagraph
Billiards
Billiards Cinemagraph
THE RESULT
Eighteen final still images and three animated cinemagraphs delivered across a two-day production: one studio day for the conceptual sports scenarios and one location day for the HCP library. All photography, CGI environment creation, cinemagraph animation, retouching, and post-production completed in-house under one creative vision.
The campaign ran worldwide across print, digital, and out of home placements for two years with a non-exclusive talent license. The smart object compositing system built into the library files gave the agency ongoing flexibility to update branded materials without additional production costs for the full duration of the campaign and beyond.
For pharmaceutical advertising clients, this campaign demonstrates the full range of what a single-vendor production can deliver: conceptual campaign photography, photorealistic CGI environments, animated cinemagraphs, and a complete HCP image library, all produced under one roof, on one creative brief, with one point of contact from first brief to final file.
CREDITS
Photography, CGI & Cinemagraph Animation: Dale May
Agent: WSW Creative
Executive Producer: George Watson
Production Coordinator: Rob Andres
Wardrobe: Stephanie Tricola
Props: Alisa Lazio
Hair & Makeup: George Kyriakos
Ad Agency: Proximyl Health
Chief Creative Officer: Tina Fascetti
VP, Creative Director, Copy: Carrie Morris
VP, Creative Director, Art: Halen Dang
Copy Supervisor: Brian Conrad
Art Supervisor: Robert Giorgio
Sr. Art Director: Skyler Bertelsen
Jr. Art Director: Marieli Valencia
SVP, Agency Services: Jennifer Peters
Account Group Supervisor: Marilyn Aquino
Associate Director, Operations: Amy Anderson
Sr. Project Manager: Michelle Vesely
Client: Accord BioPharma | Camcevi
SVP Digital and Marketing Strategy: Nuvan Dassanaike
Models: Ebony Harris, Alonzo Bristol, Judytte Purdy, Isaac Rodriguez, Shiva Kumar, Becky Boggs
See more pharmaceutical campaign work | Contact
For press inquiries, contact Sarah Hall Productions: info@shpny.com | 212.529.1598
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