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Made – Never Ordinary

Made – Never Ordinary

Optical Arts directed and produced this campaign for MADE in collaboration with Wonderhood Studios.

The film tells the story of a surreal and intriguing date. We follow a couple into a stylish and warmly lit home. In his search for the bathroom the protagonist, Daniel, explores different rooms of the house, each one more surprising than the last.

For this film we designed a series of bold and distinctive sets taking inspiration from modern showrooms and Memphis design as well as more traditional Victorian homes. The narrative starts in the entrance hall and corridor, designed to be believable spaces that act as a bridge to the magical worlds we will encounter. Within each room we discover a completely new world where the laws of physics do not apply. A Neverland of the Never Ordinary!

One of the main challenges of this project was combining the highly stylised and staged set with the less rigid cinematic and narrative feel we were striving for. We worked to define the right tone for the film aiming to create an atmosphere that was both playful and disconcerting without being too comedic or sinister.

In the film the lighting creates a mood of intrigue and curiosity, almost magical but also a little dark. The idea was to create a film with the look and feel of a design film whilst employing the cinematic and narrative techniques of directors such as Stanley Kubrick and Wes Anderson.

Agile_Room

25fps / Prores 4444

agileroom1

Agile_Room_Still

11608 x 10825 px / 8bit / TIFF

Daring_Room

25fps / Prores 4444

OA_MADE_DARING_RT8_DPS-Crop

Daring_Room_still

11608 x 10825 px / 8bit / TIFF

Obsessive Room

25fps / Prores 4444

fishroomupdateweb

Obsessive_Room_Still

11608 x 10825 px / 8bit / TIFF

Process

In order to create this extraordinary world we combined live action with CG elements. On set our CG and post production team gathered any visual information that might be relevant to building the CG components. It was important to pay particular attention to the light and texture to ensure they integrated seamlessly with their surroundings.

To create the fish-headed man, we played with different sizes and proportions to create an interesting silhouette and personality. We adjusted the fish model to make it fit on human shoulders, and reshaped it to maintain the silhouette of the character.

Credits

Direction & Production: Optical Arts

Director: Fabrice Le Nezet

Photographer: Joe Jackson

Executive Producer & Producer: Hannah May

Production Manager: Jade Almond

Production/Creative Assistants: Minna Griffiths & Eilish Briscoe

1st AD: James Dyer

DOP: Sy Turnball

Camera Assistant: Elliott Lowe

Set Design: Leila Latchin

Construction: Made Workshop

Costume Designer: Emma Lipop

Editor: Greg Hayes

VFX Supervisor: Miguel Wratten

2D Artists: Ben Gallagher, Paul Gill & Matt Butcher

CG Animation (Optical Arts): Fabrice Le Nezet, Nicolas Damour & Ivan Xavier

CG Lead Artist (Time Based Arts): Ian Baird

CG Team (Time Based Arts): Bethan Williams, Chris Wood, Steve Dato, Teodora Retegan, Tom Di Stasio & ZoƩ Sottiaux

Colourist: Lewis Crossfield

Post Producer: Sean Ewins

Post Production Assistant: Angie Broomfield

Executive Producer for Colour: Dan Kreeger

Stills Retouching: Martin Pryor

Casting Director: Hammond Cox

Actors: Tom Bridger, Sarah Sayrui Hare

Sound Design: Jon Clarke at Factory