FELLINI FORWARD

Short List
TitleFELLINI FORWARD
BrandCAMPARI GROUP
Product/ServiceCAMPARI RED DIARIES
Category D02. Innovative Use of Technology
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
Credits
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

Describe the creative idea

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 execution

New and existing AI tools were brought together in a unique workflow. Using AI, we analysed Fellini’s past work to extract data and patterns in his creative style, looking at shot type, camera movement, dialogue and facial emotion amongst other elements. A new AI-driven script-writing tool was created using the existing GPT-2 AI model. This was retrained on Fellini transcripts as well as film script structure and syntax to predict dialogue, characters, action and parentheticals and to make Felliniesque contributions to the new script. A pre-visualisation tool was also created to bring the vision of the short film to life. The AI Fellini shot prediction model was developed as a plug-in for real-time 3D creation platform, Unreal Engine, meaning the AI-generated ideas could be assessed pre-shoot as real-time renders in Unreal. Throughout the process, Fellini’s niece Francesca Fellini and original members of his crew, were consulted to validate that the AI suggestions were truly ‘Felliniesque’. The outcome is a 45 minutes documentary by award winning duo ZCDC, including a 10 minutes original short movie technologically inspired by Federico Fellini, digging the relationship between human, creativity, and technology and questioning the future of entertainment itself. Premiered at the 2021 Venice Film Festival, presented at New York Film Festival and now available on Prime Video, in just the first week after the launch, it generated more than 2 billions impressions, 1300 written articles with an oustanding average of 89 impact score. MAIN DEVELOMPENT PHASES: AI - DIGITAL DISCOVERY 10/12/19 - 28/02/20 (research / definition of approach / technical feasibility). AI - DIGITAL PRODUCTION 28/02/20 - 15/06/21 (data extraction & validation / tool development / AI model development). Live Action PreProd 18/01/21 - 23/04/21 (3D content production, animation, previs, shoot).