Making of “A Hypnotic Journey” with Alessandra Kila

“Through the mechanical and perpetual movements of diamonds, malachite, tourmaline and pearls the viewer is taken from a rational state of mind to a trance-like hallucination where both image and colours react to the altered state of mind. Jewels are real, but they are also a sub-conscious reality that exist as a state of desire in our mind.”

– Alessandra Kila

 

Follow Alessandra Kila into a world of hypnotic machines that enthrall through their perpetual movement. Working closely with our London studio, a triptych of full CGI videos evolved, each featuring a piece of Chanel jewellery functioning like an entrancing device: a necklace oscillates like a pendulum, a ring repeats the pattern of a spinning machine and a bracelet echoes the circular movements of a gyroscope.

How we made it:

Starting with a moodboard of references drawn from architecture, fashion, textures and art,  Alessandra Kila created a world with a highly  curated and very distinct slant on Art Deco.

The jewellery was recreated in CGI from the  original pieces, with great attention paid to the texturing of surfaces and the properties of the precious stones. Detail is everything…

For the animations Alessandra and our 3D artist Anna Toropova tested and observed the movements in real life before imitating them on screen. For instance, repeatedly dropping and filming a pearl or a ring, then replicating its motion in CGI.

At times that meant working frame by frame to achieve the most realistic flow. Clay renders below show the careful, precise progress of  the work.

The simplified set design and colours subtly harmonise with the Art Deco style of the jewellery pieces.

The sets are particularly inspired by ideas around vitrines and the display of precious objects.

Glitchy psychedelic interruptions jolt the viewer from their reverie, creating dramatic dissonances.

Initial tests show wild experimentation for colours that have just the right qualities.

The final colour grading and sound design pull all the pieces together – blending these two aesthetic worlds.

 

View all three pieces together on our website.

 

Director: Alessandra Kila
Concept, Look Development: Alessandra Kila
Full CGI Motion and Stills: Recom Farmhouse
Editor: Zoe Alexandrou
Music Composer and Sound Designer: Manuel Pinheiro
VFX: Alessandra Kila
Compositing: Felix Baesch / Recom Farmhouse
Modelling: Tanguy Koutouan / Recom Farmhouse
Texturing and Shading: Joe Carney / Recom Farmhouse
Animatics and Lighting: Anna Toropova / Recom Farmhouse
Color Grading: Christoph Bolten / Recom Farmhouse
Still Retouching: Aljaz Bezjak, Maria Luisa Calosso / Recom Farmhouse

Making Of: BMW 7 Series, Full CGI with Alessandra Kila

“The ethereal elements of light, colour and haze transmit feelings and emotions. This has been a great project to experiment with the translation of these emotions from the normally more sterile environment of CGI” – Alessandra Kila

The artist brings her unique creative vision to the new BMW 7 series, in a campaign driven by light. Inspired by exhibition spaces where light interacts with installations to become part of the work, she intersected the sculptural forms of the car with the angular shapes of sharply cut sunbeams, laser curtains and light screens – innovative imagery to reveal the lines of a visionary vehicle.

Originally developed from a creative partnership with the BMW design department, Recom Farmhouse London collaborated intensively with the artist to realise her vision in pure CGI.

Simulating light in volumetric space is challenging enough, and quick previewing of iterations fast enough as to not inhibit the creative process raises further issues. In order to deliver such ambitious images, we developed an intricate technical framework within the CGI software. This custom lighting rig can abstract the visual effect of using a fully physical lighting simulation, but render in a fraction of the time, allowing creative freedom and experimentation. For the final rendering we used the fully physical lighting model for accuracy and photorealism. Take a look behind the scenes here:

The team called on Alessandra’s strong experience with still life art photography to set up varied and subtle lighting for depth and believability in the car and environment. A myriad of tiny details, such as effects of bleeding and darkening, give a natural look, along with elements of photographed neon tubes and illuminated screens. Further lighting directed the balance of warmth and cold in the images.

To create the required atmosphere, she drew on her ongoing exploration of the use of haze to soften light. Here, the haziness carries the light and colour that are central to the project.

BMW / Full CGI Client: BMW Creative Supervision BMW: Florian Hartmann, Julia Obermeier Concept & Art Direction: Alessandra Kila CGI Artist: Kristian Turner, Carlos Pecino, Anna Toropova Post Artist: Pepê Alram, Kate Brown, Riikka Eiro, Maria Luisa Calosso

We introduced dust to give a liquid silkiness to the light. Algorithms that mimic the movement of particles create a heightened atmosphere of dusty air moving in warm light.

Colour was a vital part of this project so the post artists hand tinted the lightwaves being carried through the haze in tonalities of greens, aqua and gold. By literally mixing the colours directly with their virtual paint brushes, they painted the light with the colours of the campaign.

As the car slices through angled laser beams and sheets of pouring light, there’s a tactile and almost synaesthetic quality to the images. The interior shots in particular are hugely innovative: re-imagined as a magical space where anything could happen, and brought to life with light beaming in.

See the full series here on our site and on Behance:

BMW / Full CGI Client: BMW Creative Supervision BMW: Florian Hartmann, Julia Obermeier Concept & Art Direction: Alessandra Kila CGI Artist: Kristian Turner, Carlos Pecino, Anna Toropova Post Artist: Pepê Alram, Kate Brown, Riikka Eiro, Maria Luisa Calosso

Client: BMW
Creative Supervision BMW: Florian Hartmann
Creative Direction BMW Group Design: Julia Obermeyer
Concept & Art Direction: Alessandra Kila
CGI Artists: Kristian Turner, Carlos Pecino, Anna Toropova / Recom Farmhouse
Post Artists: Pepê Alram, Kate Brown, Riikka Eiro, Maria Luisa Calosso / Recom Farmhouse

Making of : Kronenbourg 1664 campaign

The latest Kronenbourg 1664 campaign for French advertising agency Herezie has been a great creative challenge. Working closely with the agency from pitch, through studio and location photography to CGI and post production, we were briefed to extend the iconic 1664 ribbon beyond the confines of the bottles label. The creatives at Herezie wanted us to push the boundaries of possibility, playing with perspective and scale in order to create a perfect red cross. Hence, we crafted pink flamingos flying over real beaches, a string of buoys floating on the Mediterranean Sea, a luxurious rooftop bar overlooking the Seine River with laser beams lighting up the city’s night sky which, together with the beer, continue the red ribbons of the 1664 logo.

Recom Farmhouse 1664 advertisign campaign with Alessandra Kila

Read more

GoSee AWARDS : Gold and Bronze for C. Ascher and A.Kila

We are very pleased to announce that “In the Garden” by Clemens Ascher and “Exogenesis (or Life outside of Earth) by Alessandra Kila have respectively won gold and bronze at the GoSee Awards in the categories “Art” and “Stills“. We have helped Clemens build his dystopian visions by adding some CGI architectural elements to his images and we we have added some magic to Alessandra’s otherworldly images.

Check out the making-of here and here.

Photographer: Clemens Ascher Fashion Stylist: Alice Whiting

Hair Stylist: Craig McAtear CGI Director: Kristian Turner / Recom Farmhouse 
CGI Artist: Florian Einfalt / Recom Farmhouse Post Artist: Pepe Alram, Kate Brown, Andrea Tosello / Recom Farmhouse
Photographer: Clemens Ascher Fashion Stylist: Alice Whiting

Hair Stylist: Craig McAtear CGI Director: Kristian Turner / Recom Farmhouse 
CGI Artist: Florian Einfalt / Recom Farmhouse Post Artist: Pepe Alram, Kate Brown, Andrea Tosello / Recom Farmhouse

Above : “In the Garden” by Clemens Ascher – CGI and Retouching : Recom Farmhouse

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Above: Exogenesis (or Life Outside of Earth) by Alessandra Kila – Retouching : Recom Farmhouse

Making of : Exogenesis by Alessandra Kila

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Alessandra Kila is a photographer and close friend of ours. She pops in and out of the studio nearly every week and when she asked us to help her with her new series of images, we were as usual very happy to collaborate on her fantastical voyage to another planet as her work is just unlike anything else. And it’s stunning!

In this series called Exogenesis (or Life Outside of Earth) Alessandra ventures to unfamiliar territories looking for life forms beyond our planet. In her pictures the carefully constructed sets are overturned by the surprise of the unexpected. Alessandra is indeed an avid collector of oddities. All of the organic matter encountered in her still life comes from places she travels to – from the Atlas mountain of Morocco to the slate quarries of Snowdonia.

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When she goes on a trip she always takes with her empty boxes and rucksacks that she then fills with stones, rusted metal wires, seeds, flowers and everything else she stumbles upon. She then re-assembles everything in her studio creating new juxtapositions which are both evocative and surreal.

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We helped her in creating the lush colours of these fantastical worlds by refining the strong tonalities of her pictures and by blending together the many layers that form these not-so-still still life photographs.

Photography and Concept: Alessandra Kila

Styling Assistant: Francesca Oletti

Post Artist: Pepe Alram, Kate Brown / Recom Farmhouse
Photography and Concept: Alessandra Kila

Styling Assistant: Francesca Oletti

Post Artist: Pepe Alram, Kate Brown / Recom Farmhouse
Photography and Concept: Alessandra Kila

Styling Assistant: Francesca Oletti

Post Artist: Pepe Alram, Kate Brown / Recom Farmhouse

Below you can find the making-of of one of the images together with some snaps from Alessandra’s studio.

 

 

 

CREDITS:

Concept and Photography: Alessandra Kila
Styling Assistant: Francesca Oletti
Retouching: Pepe Alram, Kate Brown / Recom Farmhouse

The Making of: OUR CHRISTMAS CARD

Recom Farmhouse Christmas Card

Click on the image to enlarge or click here if you can’t see the animation.

With Christmas sneaking up as every year also comes the question of what to send out to our friends – so this year we decided to start a hopefully popular series of collaborations with some of the amazing photographers we get to work with. The first one is with the super-talented duo Kila & Rusharc, who created together with us this gif animation, depicting a Christmas dinner building up to its climax and ending with the inevitable come-down and clean-up afterwards – repeated in a neverending cycle. Read more

The making of: ‘The Impossibility of Love’

Kila Rusharc Impossibility of Love Retouching by Recom Farmhouse

‘Teetering on the Precipice of Your Mistrust’,  Kila & Rusharc

We are finally back after a long period of absence…herrr sorry for the big gap! So it is now overdue to post this still life series which has been finalised by our retouchers before summer and shot, styled and art directed by photographers Kila & Rusharc, who are only at the beginning of their collaboration. Behind this mysterious name there are Philip and Alessandra, with the latter being also a contributor to this blog and my other half. Read more