Dale May | NY Advertising Photographer, Director & CGI Artist

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Camcevi Pharma Campaign | Case Study | Dale May, NY

Camcevi prostate cancer HCP pharmaceutical advertising campaign: Doctor taking a golf shot toward a giant CGI hole in a photorealistic landscape. Hybrid studio photography and CGI by Dale May.

Camcevi | Pharma

"Simple is right at hand."

Services

Concept Development, Studio Photography, Location Photography, Photorealistic CGI Environments, Cinemagraph Animation, Retouching & Post-Production | HCP Pharmaceutical Advertising Campaign

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Camcevi is a healthcare professional pharmaceutical advertising campaign created by Dale May for Accord BioPharma through the agency Proximyl Health, and featured in Workbook in April 2026. Six conceptual hero images combine studio photography of physicians and nurses with photorealistic CGI environments built at impossible scale, and three of the six were animated as cinemagraphs for digital HCP placements. A separate twelve-image library was photographed on location at a working medical facility, with every branded element built as a replaceable smart object. Camcevi sits within Dale's pharmaceutical and healthcare portfolio spanning oncology, vaccines, gene therapy, and healthcare technology. All photography, CGI, cinemagraph animation, retouching, and post-production were completed in-house by one artist.

The concept

Camcevi (leuprolide) is a six-month, long-acting GnRH agonist for advanced prostate cancer, and the first no-mix, prefilled, ready-to-inject subcutaneous therapy in its class. That takes preparation out of the clinical workflow entirely. The syringe is ready 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 branded 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 the 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 read as convincingly real while being physically impossible. That is a narrow target, and missing it in either direction kills the joke.

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 while building photorealistic stills means 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.

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 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, 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 by dropping a flat image layer into the PSD file. The smart object handles all of the warping, shadowing, and integration automatically.

This system was designed specifically for pharmaceutical campaigns, where branded materials are subject to regulatory updates, label changes, and ongoing medical affairs review. Building that flexibility into the original post-production files means a label change never sends anyone back to a studio.

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 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 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. Six of those stills are the conceptual hero images. The other twelve are the library, a self-contained set the agency can draw from across the life of the campaign.

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 pharmaceutical advertising clients, this campaign demonstrates the full range of what a single-artist 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.

The campaign was featured in Workbook in April 2026.

The campaign

Camcevi prostate cancer HCP pharmaceutical advertising campaign: Doctor taking a hockey slap shot toward a giant CGI net in a photorealistic arena. Hybrid studio photography and CGI by Dale May.

Camcevi prostate cancer HCP pharmaceutical advertising campaign: Doctor shooting a billiard ball toward a giant CGI pocket. Hybrid studio photography and CGI by Dale May.

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

Working with Dale

For agencies, brand teams, and pharmaceutical clients exploring conceptual HCP campaigns, photorealistic CGI environments, animated cinemagraphs, or a complete image library built around real studio photography, Dale's single-artist workflow delivers it all under one creative vision, with one point of contact from first brief to final file.

To discuss how this approach can streamline your next project, get in touch or see more pharmaceutical work.

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