FELLINI FORWARD

Short List
TitleFELLINI FORWARD
BrandCAMPARI GROUP
Product/ServiceCAMPARI RED DIARIES
Category A03. Fiction & Non-Fiction Films Over 30 minutes
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

Why is this work relevant for Entertainment?

Fellini Forward is a groundbreaking project that breaks the rules of traditional filmmaking and harnesses the power of technology to signpost the future of cinema. This project is relevant for Entertainment because it aims to create a brand new piece of entertainment - an original short film - inspired by one of the greatest filmmakers and entertainers of all time - Federico Fellini -, creating a brand new piece of entertainment along the process - a documentary by ZCDC - questioning the role of AI and Creativity and the future of entertainment as well.

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

Using artificial intelligence, we set out to unearth Fellini’s creative genius in ways that had never been done before and create 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 generate new ideas for a new piece of cinema that felt authentically Felliniesque. We would need to use a mixture of off the shelf and bespoke AI tools - although some of these tools had been used before, the way that we were combining them to create a new workflow was completely unique. Then, we corroborated the AI’s suggestions with a team of human experts - creatives and members of Fellini’s family and crew - to validate that what we were doing felt true to the director’s style. The whole project was filmed throughout in a one-of-a-kind documentary by award winning duo ZCDC.

Describe the strategy

Since its creation, Campari has always pushed artists from every field to go beyond the norm, and its relationship with every kind of arts and entertainment is very strong. Since 2017, within the format of Campari Red Diaries, Campari has constantly been reinforcing its bond with Cinema, thanks to collaborations with renowned directors such as Sorrentino, Garrone and Sollima. In 2020, for the 160th anniversary of Campari, and the 100th anniversary of Federico Fellini, we wanted to pay tribute to their geniuses, creating a brand new piece of entertainment, involving one of the most talked about technology - A.I. -, and capable of inspiring new generations of young artist and filmmakers.

Describe the execution

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’

Describe the outcome

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 Amazon Prime, in just the first week after the launch, the project generated more than 2 billions impressions, 1300 written articles with an oustanding average of 89 impact score