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The entire campaign is exquisitely designed. We emailed the creative team this week to learn more about creating it and how such an assignment, with seemingly so few constraints, affects the creative thinking of the team.
Muse: Must have been fun looking into the travel / tourism topic, especially given the 18 month travel restrictions?
Yes very.
So much “travel” goes on in your mind while you wait to go. We tried to channel that as well as possible and also think about the romance of traveling before Instagram, vloggers and internet monoculture.
We used these vintage travel films as the source for our film because they feel wonderfully exciting and naive. How would it feel to have the opportunity to travel between dimensions, visit other realities, meet different versions of yourself? Maybe a bit like a kid looking at National Geographic in 1973 and imagining the endless possibilities of unvisited places.
We tried to find footage that had that vibe and mix it up with all of the mind-boggling fun of multiverse theory.
Do you have favorite moments from the film or the campaign?
Hahaha. Many.
But here’s one that captures the wonderful chaos of this production.
We had just thought about the break in the film with the physicist and at the last second we cast for a real physics professor. This was in Barcelona and our best option was a Japanese speaker.
We had a complicated script for him that was written in English but was given to him in Spanish since English was his third language. Our director Andreas came up with the idea of ​​shooting the scene in classic BBC style, with the dialog overlapping a series of cuts between the camera angles.
We watched each other from afar in the wee hours of the morning from Portland, Oregon, trying to figure out what was being said in Japanese, and then relaying our comments in English, which was translated into Spanish and then into Japanese.
But everything worked out wonderfully and the concerned physicist became one of our favorite pieces in the film.
How did Bret McKenzie come in and why was he right?
You’ll be surprised how short the list of artists is who can write a catchy pop song full of humorous allusions to quantum mechanics. Plus, Bret is an exceptionally cool person, it’s a dream to work with and blew us away with his first demo.
We have also worked with the combo Bret and Andreas Nilsson in the past (see Old Spice “Dadsong”). Somehow they are both as nice and cooperative as they are talented, so it was a no-brainer.
Does working with such a creative client as this make your work easier or more difficult?
How about infinitely better and at the same time a little harder.
With the most interesting product in the universe and a customer who is cooperative and supportive, there really are no excuses. When you’re doing an ad for an artist collective’s imaginary travel company that takes you into other dimensions, it’s really fun. So it’s a safe place to be more personal with creativity, but it’s also a bit scary. The bar we set for ourselves was really high.
The real joy of a project like this is working together. Other creatives see such a briefing and pour themselves into it. The contributions from our director, editor, art department, visual effects and all the artists who contributed to the campaign were more than inspiring.
LOANS
BRAND: Meow Wolf
PROJECT NAME: Convergence Station
FORMAT + TITLE: Online
W + K PORTLAND
ECDs: Eric Baldwin
Creative Directors: Jason Kreher and Matt Sorrell
Art Director: Nate Nowinowski
Copywriter: Alex Romans
Executive producer: Jules Brown
Producer: Nick Ocean
Design producer: Sarah Starr
Design Director: Mike Weihs
Designer: Charlie Hilton and Matt Blum
Strategic Planning: Indiana Martine
Media / communication planning: Ryan Craven
Account Team: Kimmy Cunningham, Nai Gregory, Corrie Williams
Global Director of Business Affairs: Amber Lavender
Business: Rylee Millerd, Aliyah Oyemade
Broadcasting: Billy Mucha, Gregory Depp
PRODUCTION
Production company: Biscuit Filmworks
Partner / Managing Director: Shawn Lacy
Director: Andreas Nilsson
Executive Producer: Holly Vega
Line Producer: Jay Veal
Production Manager: Sean Moody
Cinematographer: Pepe Gay
Production designer: Ivan Trivino
EDITORIAL STAFF
Editor: Academy Pictures
Editor: Tommy Harden
Editorial assistant: Trevor Schulte
Editorial assistant: Carmen Hu
Post producer: Leslie Carthy
VFX
VFX company: WK Studios
VFX Creative Director: Stefan Smith
VFX Flame Artists: Aidan Jung, Shane Zinkhon
Moving Graphics: Gavin Wright
VFX producer: Sarah Zerina Usmen
VFX Executive Producer: Nirad “Bugs” Russell
VFX coordinator: Zai Outlaw
VFX AND COLOR
VFX company: Absolutely
VFX Supervisor: Ben Robards, Phil Oldham, Jorge Calvo
Color: Matt Turner
Junior colorist: Juliette Wileman
2D leader: Milo Paterson
2D artists: Chris Tobin, Tom Clapp, Scott Simmonds, Lucas Warren
CG lead: Keith Rogers
CG Artists: Ollie Grant, Craig Healy, Dan Baiton, Huggy Stephens
Animation studio: Blind Pig
3D animators: Sean Cooper, Ric Comline
Moving graphics: Lawrence Scanlon
Executive Producers: Kirsty Murray, Sally Heath
MUSIC
Music company: Walker
Executive Producer: Sara Matarazzo, Stephanie Pigott
Senior Producer: Danielle Soury
Written and executed by: Bret McKenzie
AUDIO
Audio company: JOINT
Sound designer / mixer: Natalie Huizenga
Executive Producer: Kathleen Russell
ZINE ACTIVATION
Producer: Amy Carleton
Design producer: Sarah Starr
Print producer: Kirstin Holder
Zine Artists: Dustin Holland, Jamiyla Lowe, Liana Fink, Shintaro Kago,
Courtney Knight, Chloe Kendall, Jolby, Alex Jenkins, Smearballs, Jati, Grif, Jenifer Prince, Jesse Jacobs, Max Loeffler, Luke Dorman, Reshi, Brook Barker, Nighttime Science, Lala Albert, Dylan Griffith, Hellen Jo, Wanderweird, Saitemiss
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