Made - Never Ordinary | Work

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.

In order to create this extra-ordinary 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 & Zoé 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

Made - Never Ordinary

Made - Never Ordinary

Process

Credits