SKEMA graduate behind Les Bleus’ viral World Cup trailer

Within days, the trailer produced by Robin Arjona and his team had drawn attention for its polished aesthetic and cinematic artistic direction inspired by American film culture. Cherry on top: it was reposted by Emmanuel Macron on LinkedIn.

Behind the viral trailer stands one graduate: Robin Arjona, a 2023 graduate of SKEMA’s Master in Management (PGE), and co-founder of production company Maison Rec alongside Cécile Roussilhe. For the project, they worked with Hector Ballner, founder of the creative agency Surged.

The trio collaborate on a regular basis, with Maison Rec handling production while Surged oversees direction and artistic vision.

During your time at SKEMA, you spent a year at UCLA Extension in Los Angeles. What did you take away from the experience?

I already wanted to work in audiovisual production and creative industries, but UCLA allowed me to turn that ambition into something far more tangible. There, we were in direct contact with industry professionals: producers, studio marketing executives and creatives from major groups, including 20th Century Fox. Every course, most of which took place in the evening, ended with a “final project”. These were fictional projects with huge budgets, very far removed from reality on the ground. But I thought: why not use these assignments to help develop our own business? That was the moment Cécile and I began structuring Maison Rec.

At what point did your coursework projects become a genuine entrepreneurial venture?

Being surrounded by experienced professionals in the industry strengthened my desire to pursue this path. As early as January, I told my professors about my plans to launch a production company with Cécile, with the ambition of putting the knowledge and experience gained during our studies at the service of our future business. Some classes even took place inside Fox’s studios in California. We worked on storytelling, marketing and digital campaigns. These are all skills we now use at Maison Rec.

Before the Les Bleus trailer, you had already worked with the French Football Federation…

That’s right. We first produced a video for the French women’s team ahead of UEFA Women’s Euro 2025, within an extremely tight production schedule. The Federation appreciated our work and told us they wanted to continue collaborating with smaller creative structures capable of bringing fresh ideas and original concepts. A few months later, we were called back for the men’s team trailer ahead of the 2026 World Cup. When we received the call, we realised things were changing scale. I would also like to warmly thank Sahana Indreswaran, Social Media Project Manager at the FFF, for the trust placed in us for this second project, and for her support since the beginning of the adventure.

What was your role on the project, day to day?

With Cécile, we handled the entire production side of the project. That ranged from recruiting teams and organising the shoot to budget supervision and coordination with the French Football Federation. Our role was to ensure everything ran smoothly from an artistic, financial and logistical perspective.

During a media day, players move from one partner to another throughout the day.

As we remain a very young structure, we are still deeply involved on the ground and constantly multitasking. One moment, we may be dealing with strategic production issues, and the next, we are carrying equipment or solving a technical problem on set. It’s intense.

How does a shoot like this unfold?

We spent close to a year preparing the trailer. In total, around forty people worked on the project across production, set design, visual effects, music and post-production. The shoot itself took place over a single day at Clairefontaine, the French national team’s training centre. Several sets were specially built for the occasion and everything had to be ready before the players arrived. The most difficult aspect was timing.

We wanted to create something warm and accessible.

During a media day, players move from one partner to another all day long. At times, three players would arrive simultaneously and we only had a few minutes to shoot their scenes. In many cases, we had just five minutes with each player, which is extremely short.

One small anecdote: despite the frantic pace, we managed to spend almost half an hour with N'Golo Kanté, who wandered from set to set with the crews during filming. It felt slightly surreal when you know the usual pace of this kind of event (laughs).

The trailer has a very distinctive visual identity, particularly through its strong colour grading and set design. What inspired you?

The entire artistic direction behind “Clearfountain” was imagined by Hector Ballner and Julien Ruiz, the project’s artistic director, before being elevated by the work of the teams involved. The aim was to create a coherent and harmonious universe through the sets, cinematography, post-production work including VFX and colour grading, as well as the musical composition.

We wanted to build something warm and accessible, filled with references to the host countries of the World Cup, particularly Mexico and Canada. Our inspirations ranged from The Simpsons to Edward Scissorhands, alongside the visual culture of American suburbs.

At a time when artificial intelligence is becoming increasingly widespread within the audiovisual sector, we also wanted to highlight the manual and artisanal work behind the creation. It felt important to showcase human craftsmanship and creativity.

Every set was therefore designed specifically for the project by artisans before being transported to Clairefontaine. Likewise, the music was an original composition performed by real musicians rather than generated by computers.

The trailer spread widely across social media and traditional media outlets. How did you experience that exposure?

Everything happened very quickly. The video was shown on television news programmes, shared across social media and even circulated internationally, particularly in Mexico, where local media outlets isolated the sequences featuring their country in the trailer. We are especially happy for all the teams who worked on it for months. Now, the challenge is to build on this momentum over the long term. We hope to continue developing projects in sport, fashion and entertainment.

More information about the MSc Digital Marketing and Business of Entertainment

*Programme leading to the award of SKEMA’s Master in Management (Programme Grande École), a SKEMA MSc degree and a dual UCLA Extension certificate.

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