Infinite Futures Film
The University of Melbourne
Issue 46 | April 2018
Agency
McCann Melbourne
Creative Team
McCann Melbourne: Executive Creative Director: Nicole Mandile Executive Creative Director & Copywriter: Matthew Lawson Copywriter: Charles Baylis Art Director: Joseph Sibley
Production Team
McCann Melbourne: Agency Producer: Anne Comber Onesal: Director: Nahuel Salcedo Executive Producer: Ailin Brunner
Other Credits
National Chief Creative Officer: Patrick Baron Account Director: Emma Van Den Berg Account Manager: Meg Andrews Account Executive: Leighton Howindt Strategic Planner: Chamari Kariyakaranage Group Account Director: Charlie McDevitt Managing Director: Anita Deutsch-Burley
Date
October – December 2017
Background
The University of Melbourne's is one of Australia's leading universities with a world-class curriculum. Every University promises to prepare students for the future. But the reality is that the future has not yet been written.
The job was to prove that The University of Melbourne prepares you for every possible future.
But how do you visualise the unknown?
Idea
A film depicted 'Infinite Futures' in a beautifully crafted animated story. In this way, it explained the overall purpose to create employees that are ready for these futures.
Execution
The first step was to define what each future landscape should be.
The idea was to start with the University's existing research, those projects that will shape the future of key industries were identified, one key concept was extracted to show it in a visually pleasing way.
Each landscape was designed to engage and inspire students, to draw them in. That's why every landscape is in a way connected to the real world.
And nature itself became a source of visual inspiration. The idea was to start with a visual that represents the common perception of the future, a crystal ball.
One entity becoming embryonic giving life to a multitude of eventualities.
After that, they moved onto the animation stage. To make everything feel organic most of the animations were based on simulations. Like smoke, particles, fluids, cloth and soft bodies.
To represent the cavernous spaces of the brain a viscous simulation was done that stretched up. Fluid simulations are particle based, and as you stretch the shape, the particles inside are pulled apart, breaking the connections
To solve this a custom system was developed that spawned new particles as the fluid stretched, keeping the fluid connected.
To make the look of the grounds procedural textures were combined with extremely high definition real life textures and the result used as displacement maps.
Results
The result was a film that presented versions of the future unlike any that have been seen before, and then show students ways to prepare for them at the University of Melbourne.
Combined reach of 4.892 million
Completion rate of 39%.