Title	FELLINI FORWARD
Brand	CAMPARI GROUP
Product/Service	CAMPARI RED DIARIES
Category	A01. Data-enhanced Creativity
Entrant	WUNDERMAN THOMPSON Milan, ITALY
Idea Creation	WUNDERMAN THOMPSON Milan, ITALY
PR	HILL+KNOWLTON London, UNITED KINGDOM
Production	UNIT9 London, UNITED KINGDOM
Post Production	UNIT9 London, UNITED KINGDOM

Name	Company	Position
Sergio Rodriguez	WPP	Global Creative Director Campari WPP
Lorenzo Crespi	Wunderman Thompson Italy	Chief Creative Officer
Dario Marongiu	Wunderman Thompson Italy	Creative Director
Lorenzo Branchi	Wunderman Thompson Italy	Creative Director
Virginie Alexandre	Wunderman Thompson Italy	Senior TV Producer
Marco Papale	Wunderman Thompson Italy	Head of Innovation
Alessandro Fusco	Wunderman Thompson Italy	Head of Digital Strategy
Arianna Nitri	Wunderman Thompson Italy	Art Director
Maximilian Niemann	Unit9	Creative Director
Marc D’Souza	Unit9	Project Director
Martino Butti	Unit9	Executive Producer
Yi Nong Dong	Unit9	Producer
Maciej Zasada	Unit9	Technical Director
Harry Starkey-Midha	Unit9	Producer Short Movie
Drea Cooper	Unit9	Directors Documentary
Zackary Canepari	Unit9	Directors Documentary
Gary Kout	Unit9	Producers Documentary
Adam Dolman	Unit9	Executive Producers Documentary
Andrea Betti	Wunderman Thompson Italy	Strategic Planner
Ruth Arban	WPP	Global Client Leader
Marco Croci	Wunderman Thompson Italy	Client Service Director
Lorenzo Salemme	Wunderman Thompson Italy	Client Service Director
Eliza Guarienti	Wunderman Thompson Italy	Account Director
Federica Carpanzano	Wunderman Thompson Italy	Account Supervisor
Marco Celletti	Wunderman Thompson Italy	Account Executive
Jacopo Galimberti	Wunderman Thompson Italy	Junior Account

Why is this work relevant for Creative Data?

Fellini Forward is a groundbreaking project made possible by harnessing the power of AI to extract and analyse data and convert this into creative output in order to enhance the filmmaking process. Whilst the data-driven world of AI has not always been synonymous with the emotion-fuelled craft of creativity, the way that data has been used within this collaborative workflow between humans and machines has resulted in a completely original piece of cinema influenced by one of Italy’s greatest creative minds - Federico Fellini.

Background

Since its creation, Campari has pushed the boundaries of creativity to go beyond the norm, and its relationship with the arts - especially cinema - has grown strong. Having worked with the iconic film director, Federico Fellini, on one of his few brand collaborations in 1984, Campari wanted to continue and celebrate his legacy with a forward-thinking project that blends creativity and innovation in the cinema industry with the most cutting-edge technology. Was there a way for us to bring the Maestro back from the grave to direct a new short film?

Describe the Creative idea / data solution (20% of vote)

Using AI, we aimed to unearth Fellini’s creative genius in ways that had never been done before, creating a new short film infused with the essence of the Italian director. By training an AI on Fellini’s past works, we would be able to extract and analyse past data in order to generate ideas for a new piece of cinema that would feel authentically Felliniesque. We would develop a unique workflow consisting of existing and new AI tools in order to do this. Another key part of our idea was to corroborate the AI’s suggestions with a team of human experts - creatives and members of Fellini’s family and crew - to validate that the output data felt true to the director’s style. This was to be an intimate love letter written in 1s and 0s - an ode to Fellini, technology and cinema, written at the intersection point where they

Describe the data driven strategy (30% of vote)

Using AI tools, we knew that we could thoroughly analyse Fellini’s past movies and scripts to extract data and establish patterns that could ascertain his signature creative decisions - such as shot type, camera movement, dialogue and facial emotion amongst other elements. This is something humans alone could never do. Because the only data sources we were feeding the AI were Fellini’s past work, we could be sure that the AI output would be representative of the director’s style. Our creative decisions in the filmmaking process were therefore all to be influenced by what this data told us about Fellini’s creative vision.

Describe the creative use of data, or how the data enhanced the creative output (30% of vote)

Data-driven AI tools made a significant contribution to the creative vision of the film. Thanks to data collected from submitting Fellini’s past screenplays, a script writing tool was developed to help identify Fellini’s writing style. The screenwriting application was specifically designed to allow human screenwriters to work hand-in-hand with the AI in script creation. This bespoke tool was able to suggest copy and dialogue to include in the new script based on it’s learnings from past Fellini works. A pre-visualisation tool was also developed to ingest the short film script and leverage the data to generate a set of creative suggestions in terms of camera position, movement, shot type and duration. The film shots were sequenced in Unreal Engine, meaning that the human director on set was able to iterate the screenplay using the real-time visualisation, reconstructing and editing the content based on key insight from the machine.

List the data driven results (20% of vote)

Developing this unique collaborative workflow between machines and humans allowed us to create a new piece of cinema that felt authentically Felliniesque, something that would never have been possible without the data-driven guidance of the AI. Close members of Fellini’s family and past crew were involved in the process to validate that the AI suggestions were truly Felliniesque, and their expert verdict is that the final output certainly fulfilled our objective to create a new piece of cinema that aligned with the director’s style.