Psyop · Films and campaigns
IBM
Making cloud infrastructure, blockchain and artificial intelligence tangible across a series of assignments.
Role
Creative Director
Studio
Psyop
Psyop · Films and campaigns
Making cloud infrastructure, blockchain and artificial intelligence tangible across a series of assignments.
IBM often needed stories about things you couldn’t point a camera at. Across several assignments at Psyop, I looked for physical settings and visual ideas that could make the technology easier to understand.
The work took different forms: a theatrical set, journeys through real locations, and a series of crafted worlds. Each began with the same practical question: what could the audience see happen that would make the capability clear?
Blockchain
The client brought a reference from The Life Aquatic: the ship shown in cross-section, with its story unfolding room by room. I proposed a cloud-shaped stage that could take the audience through blockchain’s different uses.
The team developed a multi-level set in Cape Town, with casting, choreography and camera moves planned together. The physical setting gave an abstract technology an accessible story and made the transitions part of the explanation.
Cloud & Watson
Four films opened with “The cloud I need?” Each followed a business owner through places that changed around them, showing how IBM’s capabilities could answer their needs.
The transitions carried the idea, so I brought an editor onto the Barcelona shoot. The team could see how the scenes connected before leaving a setup. Camera moves, live action, visual effects and animation worked toward the same continuous journey.
Cloud Shapes
Cloud Shapes became twenty-five short films, each giving a capability its own visual treatment. The variety let the team approach the technology through different materials, styles and ideas.
Project Debater
Project Debater was IBM’s system built to argue a case against a person.
Blockchain
Cloud & Watson