Responses by Curtis Baigent, executive creative director/director, f°am Studio
Background: Commissioned by 3-D animation software company Maxon, we were challenged to put the latest release of Cinema 4D through its paces and explore new creative territories. A two minute and 36-second short film, ‘Influencers’ is about drawing out everyday intrigue and allowing it to influence the world around us. Based on the concept of animism, we set out to breathe life into the familiarity of the world and coax out the unexpected.
Reasoning: The project is a celebration of the creative process and a meditation on the way we work in 3-D as a studio. It had to be playful and exploratory in order for it to be a true representation of what we do. We were confident that this would lead us to a visual and narrative solution that embraced the familiar and the potentially banal in new, unique an unexpected ways.
Challenges: Wrangling a free and unruly creative process and harnessing it to express something meaningful. We love to put ourselves out of our comfort zone. It’s always a humbling experience to play in unexplored and uncomfortable creative spaces, but it yields the most unique results. We consciously force ourselves to embrace it—to really learn to trust that the process will lead you somewhere interesting. The struggle is real.
Favorite details: That this is a pretty ‘true-to-life’ studio portrait. You can feel the free expression of everyone in the studio in the short film, inhabiting each tiny detail and bringing the world to life. We also love that this all female cast of characters each have their own 3-D-centric idiosyncrasies which become a nod to the ghost in the machine—the unique quirks and functions within the software itself.
Visual influences: The power socket in the forgotten corner of your living room. Your grandparents’ windowsill, bathed in the morning light. The honesty of the disarrangement at your friend’s studio space. The imperfect. The impermanent. The incomplete.
Anything new: We learn something new at every step of the way. If we’re not learning, we’re probably not doing it right. This one felt like a masterclass of life and love.
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