Rob Munday
Having first highlighted their work back in 2011, when we featured Kibwe Tavares’ CG animation Robots of Brixton, over the following years the Factory Fifteen trio (the other two-thirds of the studio are Jonathan Gales and Paul Nicholls) would return to our pages a further three times (with Jonah, ANA and Robot & Scarecrow) with their distinct approach to filmmaking. After studying architecture together, their unique aesthetic sets out to bring “places to life with a heightened sense of reality and fantasy, often using the environment as a character” – a technique they’ve once again employed in their latest work, a high-profile trail made with Nexus Studios for the BBC’s coverage of the Tokyo Olympics.
Shot to feel like a single continuous camera move, the 60-second film transports its audience to a version of Tokyo where the city’s streets have been completely taken over by the Olympics, the street signs, shops and arcades all brimming with references to sports, athletes and even BBC presenters. The Factory Fifteen team collaborated with Japanese artist and designer Fantasista Utamaro and legendary Anime composer Kenji Kawai to give the piece what the studio refer to as “an authenticity and quirkiness we definitely would not have achieved alone”. Repeatedly screened over various channels, the studio also worked with the BBC to reward repeat viewings by including “as much hidden narrative as possible”, stating that “watching it for the 20th time you will likely see a sports star or reference you hadn’t noticed before”.
Eager to find out how much their earlier filmmaking has been influential on their approach to their commercial work, we spoke to the Factory Fifteen team about the importance of their short films in the current projects:
“It was a real opportunity to bring together themes that we’ve explored through a lot of our other projects, all in the same place. Building a world and telling the story through the environment has always been a theme we’ve explored in our short films.”
“This project allowed us to really go to town on the design and detail of the scenes, making every element count; in this case, more is literally more. From the building-sized neons, to the stickers on the TV, everything has been designed to feature an Olympic sport or athlete in the scene. We wanted the world we created to be intense with everything contributing to the narrative, but also to feel like a Tokyo we know; authentic, believable, enhanced.”
“The film is a smooth flowing journey through Tokyo, but it was really important to be full of life and people going about their day. Mixing locations with studio shoots, with fully CG scenes was a super fun challenge and our experience in making short films gave us a broad skillset to draw from and use. From working with actors to programming Motion Control, we were able to compose the film around this one central vision and journey to Tokyo 2020.”
“It’s been fantastic to work with the BBC, directing their Tokyo 2020 Olympics ad”, they conclude. “The Olympics is something that brings everyone together, nationally but also around the world, we collectively watch the best of us compete. This year more than most the world needs a pick me up, and playing a small part in how that’s represented on broadcast has been a dream come true”.