Uncaged

for Telstra

and DDB

uncaged

for  Telstra
and  DDB

“The level of craft and attention to detail from all the artists combined to create a truly captivating experience for the Telstra store. Seeing the birds and rich environment come to life on a such a large scale was both enchanting and satisfying to say the least”.

Robertino Zambrano

Director

Geometric +
Organic!

The world we designed for the Telstra Uncaged project had to strike a balance between geometric sophistication and organic beauty. Through exploratory sketches, paintups and 3D sculpting, we fashioned a family of stylised geometric birds styled against a Rosella. We were tasked to create an ambient experience which communicated the emotional aspects of the Telstra brand – sophistication, transformation, movement, communication and colour. 

The technical design challenge was to maintain a stylised form for the bird, while coupling it with realistic movement and behaviour. Our birds were animated with social behaviours, transmitting colour from one bird to the next. We observed real-life flocking behaviours, and brought them to life in our bird colony to introduce a realistic social dynamic within the colony of these birds.

The experience is designed to play throughout the day, with the environment’s lighting situation evolving over time, and the birds’ behaviour also reflecting this change to create a more inviting ambience to the store. 

Beautiful at
all times

We had to design birds with a minimalist approach to form, but had the ability to articulate realistic motion for our animators to work with. The environment was designed so light and shadow could play beautifully through it’s leaves and branches as the time of day changed, with the idea of turning Telstra’s massive in-store display into a delightful portal to another living world. The digital birds were also extended into the physical world, using coloured 3D printing and hand-made paper construction to create the retail bird displays.

A Mighty Crew with Nice Talent

and the most decent human beings you’ll probably ever meet…

DIRECTOR

Robertino Zambrano

EXECUTIVE CREATIVE DIRECTOR

Darren Price

CREATIVE DIRECTOR

Softly Dunstan

PRODUCERS

Donna Scully,
Gabrielle Joosten

HEAD OF STUDIO

Jeremy Howdin

DESIGN

Anthony Vivien
Josh Edwards
Eddy Herringson

MODELLING & SURFACING

Charles Ewart
Lucas Michaels

RIGGING

Vincent E Sousa
Ludovic Habas

ANIMATORS

Lucas Michaels
Duncan McLaren
Balazs Mezaros

LIGHTING & VFX

Serge Kovalenko

COMPOSITING

Navid Bagherzadeh
Dean Richichi

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