Responses by Adam Rowe, creative director, ManvsMachine
Background: Squarespace came to us with the request to spice up its platform in a fresh and inventive way, while clearly showcasing the features of the product. The final films needed to educate any potential consumers who were unaware of what Squarespace has to offer, so it needed to be hard-hitting and have global appeal.
Reasoning: Our touchstone for the creative process was ‘digital made physical.’ Essentially, we wanted to show the different creative personalities crafting their Squarespace through their own creative process and demonstrate the product in the most inspiring way possible.
Challenges: One of the trickiest parts of the project was bringing the digital interactions—such as swipes, zooms and clicks—to life through physical camera movements and maintaining its precision. To do so, we had to build elaborate manually operated rigs, which allowed for a certain level of control over the camera movements.
Favorite details: We are really proud of the way we managed to capture the personalities of each of the creatives in an authentic and engaging way. It was hugely inspiring for us to talk to and explore the worlds of the three amazingly talented personalities that were featured in the films.
Visual influences: We were fortunate enough to have access to our three inspirational creatives who influenced the core design of the different worlds. All of them have amazing taste, which made our lives easy when trying to create visually stunning imagery.
Time constraints: The project’s overall timeline was pretty healthy, but the shoot had to be filmed over a reduced timeframe. Most of the time, when one scene was being polished on one set, we were filming another scene on an adjacent set. Everything had to be planned in minute detail and luckily our talented 3-D team was nearby to help out with every shot.