AKQA came to us to help produce a concept video for Bolt Threads, a company of world-class scientific and engineering talent currently producing man-made spider silk and exploring its various applications. The video documented Bolt Threads initiative to produce 50 spider silk ties, gifting the first to comic book legend Stan Lee. Through this, we captured the story of the CEO, Dan Widmaier’s hand written letter to Stan.

The story itself begins with Dan’s inspiration from Stan Lee’s creative vision, taking childhood fantasy and actualizing it into groundbreaking technological reality. Bolt Threads and AKQA collaborated on an initial creative treatment based on classic comic book movie storylines. This origin story style video paired the voice over of Widmaier’s letter to Stan with visuals of Bolt Thread’s high tech scientific facilities, cinematically documenting the process from scientists creating the silk all the way down to the industrial loom constructing the ties.