FORK - Surreal Journey Interrogating our Perception

In a museum, a woman looking at a Fork exhibited as a piece of Art let her imagination run wild. The film is a surreal journey interrogating our perception of objects. What happens when you take an object from daily life and move it outside of its original context? What is left of an object when it loses its function? An abstract shape, a sculpture? Can we deconstruct this object into simple elements and create variation of this object? Can those objects be combined to form a larger structure? Can those objects become alive to break free from human ownership? That's the synopsis of FORK, a really cool film and motion design project created by the amazing people over at Optical Arts a creative studio based in London. With an experimental approach and a collective spirit we explore new ways to tell visual stories, applying innovative techniques to live action, digital and print.

Director Fabrice Le Nezet:

We choose to work with simple objects, some iconic items everyone could easily recognize. A fork, a stool, a Mug. Because we wanted to play with sculptural forms, we chose objects that are beautiful and elegant with clear volume and silhouette.

Behind the Scenes:

Most of this project was completed in lockdown due to Covid-19 pandemic. This presented its own unique challenges, working remotely for the CGI elements was fairly straightforward, but we had to delay the live action element of the shoot until Government restrictions eased. We kept the crew to a minimum and implemented a strict social distancing of two meters and masks and gloves were worn by all. Planning an extra prellight day to the schedule allowed us to set up the different shots with only essential lighting and camera crew, creating a much less demanding, more efficient and most importantly safe shoot day.

Technical Considerations:

The film has been made using a combination of Maya and Houdini and was rendered in Redshift. All shots were then composed in Nuke and Flame and graded using Resolve.

The procedural approach of Houdini made it the perfect tool to create this project.

While developing some R&D we were able to quickly sketch ideas and seamlessly test dynamic behaviour. Animation was achieved through a mixture of physic based simulation alongside some more manual bespoke procedural setup.