Art director

Personal project, fashion ad

Overview

In this fashion spec commercial created upon the graduation from San Francisco School of Digital Filmmaking back in 2013, I explored the existential motives of absurdity. The action takes place in the post-apocalyptic setting on a space ship, where the remains of humanity are fighting for the last bottle of a Juicy Couture perfume.

I got a chance to wear multiple hats for this project - from conceptualizing, producing, directing, art directing, set and costume design, to video editing. I managed a team of 50 creative human beings, including production team, actors, photographers, make up artists, and hair stylists. The most challenging part was fighting the fear of unknown as I had to stop by an abandoned warehouse at night looking for the perfect vintage chandelier.

Branding concept

Largely inspired by existential philosophy I was studying at that time, this project really came to life after I first heard Sia’s song Chandelier. The post-apocalyptic set design, stunning dancing, absurdity resonated with me deeply. I wanted to implement the same motives into a spec commercial staring one of my favorite fragrances by Juicy Couture, Juicy Noir. With a background in advertising, video production of commercials has always been especially fascinating for me.

I envisioned the commercial to be a mini-story that unfolds years after the Earth is gone as a planet, on a space ship carrying last humans traveling to the unknown. The characters are the teens who have a costumed party created from whatever they could find on the ship - old pianos, wigs, chains, circus balls. The film starts with the fighting scene unfolding between the two girls. One of the girls wins, cheered by her excited supporters. After the dancing scene we learn about the prize that the winner gets - a bottle of a Juicy Noir fragrance that has been kept on a ship as treasure. The advertising concept here lies in building strong associations between Juicy and the most wanted brand.

I created with a film proposal where I described the desired style, characters and a shot list with camera angles. It helped me figure out how many characters I need in total, set design props and costumes.

Character creation

I planned to have 20 characters dressed in different styles. I wanted to have some vintage looks, circus looks, underground and military looks. It was important to create a mood board that I could share with the team - especially make up artists and hair stylists so that we can start carefully planning for each character. Below are some inspirational pictures from my Juicy Couture Pinterest board.

I sketched each character and identified make up, hair, costume, and all the materials we needed to create the look, which was communicated to the creative team, which I managed. I also built a film set - scouted out an old piano, created a circus stand out of a plant box, built a human sized bird cage which took all night to decorate with flowers, and scouted antique stores for the circus props. After three months of preparation, our team of 50 people were getting ready for a big day! We rented a huge storage space in Oakland, and spent all day shooting.

Art direction

As an art director, I couldn’t wish for the better models - everyone on the set seemed to really get into the character, and it was a magical experience seeing narratives come to life. And, of course, the rest of the drew did an amazing job as well. As the video editor, it was a pleasure working with Red camera footage - in Final Cut Pro and then in After Effects.