RÆBURN, REBORN.

I'm delighted to share RÆBURN, REBORN, a new film created in collaboration with the brilliant Elliott Starr and his team at Belief Studio.

I first met Elliott in 2025, and what followed was a wonderfully open creative dialogue. Elliott brought an extraordinary amount of imagination, ideas and storytelling to our conversations, and together we explored how AI might allow us to create something that simply wouldn't be possible through conventional filmmaking. That was always the ambition: to use new technology with purpose, rather than simply for the sake of it.

The inspiration came from the extraordinary true story of William Rankin, an American military pilot who ejected from his aircraft at 47,000 feet in 1959, only to become trapped inside a violent thunderstorm. For approximately 40 minutes, Rankin was carried through the clouds before miraculously surviving. He later documented his experience in The Man Who Rode the Thunder.

Elliott's idea was to reimagine that journey in reverse. Our protagonist, wearing RÆBURN's original Air Brake parachute garments, deliberately leaps from a London rooftop, travelling through a dramatic storm before emerging into sunlight and eventually arriving at our new studio in Greenwich Peninsula. It's a remarkable visual journey, and one that feels particularly relevant as we continue to refine and evolve RÆBURN.

We've always been curious about emerging technologies and new ways of working. In fact, we were creating fully CGI films back in 2012, and this latest exploration of AI feels like a natural continuation of that curiosity. What's particularly exciting is that these new possibilities exist alongside the physical processes of sketching, cutting, sewing and making by hand that remain fundamental to our studio.

Of course, experimenting with AI also brings environmental responsibilities. Working with Elliott and his team, we adopted a precautionary approach to estimating the film's footprint. Recognising the limitations of current measurement tools, Belief Studio worked from a conservative worst-case estimate, doubled its mitigation contribution, and RÆBURN matched that contribution towards water and carbon-offsetting projects. It's not a claim of carbon neutrality, but an acknowledgement that innovation must be approached with consideration and transparency.