Here Be Dragons, a creative studio co-founded by director Chris Milk and producers Patrick Milling-Smith and Brian Carmody, has grown its roster, expanding capabilities across disciplines including film, experiential, virtual and augmented reality.
Recent signings for the studio–which has bases of operation in NY, L.A. and London–include Judith Veenendaal whose cross-media work won her the Young Directors Award at the 2017 Cannes Lions Festival for Creativity: Isaac Ravishankara, long-time music video collaborator for The Lumineers who dropped the latest music video “Hymn” for Kesha this week; Jim Cummings who was recently awarded the Narrative Feature Award at SXSW for his film Thunder Road as well as having received the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance; director Patrick Fileti who last month unveiled the visceral short film Undercurrent at the prestigious Arte Laguna in support of The Refugee Council; directing duo Similar But Different (Charlotte Fassler and Dani Girdwood) known for their “Love What You Love” campaign for Spotify and latest music video “Only One” for Carlie Hanson; Kris Belman, the director behind Burger King’s stunt meets advertisement “Google Home of the Whopper”; and Cannes Film Festival veteran Sonejuhi Sinha who most recently wrapped principal photography on her feature Stray Dolls.
Here Be Dragons’ executive team is joined by EP/head of talent Kamila Prokop and EP David Richards who are primarily focused on the film and branded content division.
Here Be Dragons’ continued commitment to curating creative talent comes after a busy year that saw the creative studio expanding more into film and experiential in addition to mixed reality. This month Similar But Different released two spots, part of Spotify’s “Love What You Love” campaign that show just how good discovering a new song (or rediscovering an old song) can make a person feel. Here Be Dragons and director Kris Belman most recently worked with David Agency on Burger King’s “Whopper Neutrality.” The spot explained hot button topic net neutrality using the whopper and immediately went viral, receiving over 4 million views on YouTube within its first week.
The medium-agnostic creative studio has also turned out innovative mixed reality projects such as Sessions: The Legion Mixed Reality Experience for FX Network at San Diego Comic Con. The experience utilized both the HoloLens headset and live actors within a massive interactive installation, putting viewers into the eyes of the show’s lead character David Haller (Dan Stevens), a diagnosed schizophrenic who discovers he may actually be a super powerful mutant instead. Here Be Dragons then teamed up with Netflix to promote the science fiction series Altered Carbon by letting users experience Psychasec 300 years early. The result was the Altered Carbon Interactive Mirror, an augmented reality installation that allowed users to participate in the premise of the show by shopping for virtual bodies. After the experience, participants received a shareable video of themselves with their chosen body. Here Be Dragons also premiered its last episode of Dispatch at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival. Dispatch, an episodic story told in four parts, follows a small-town police dispatcher named Ted (Martin Starr) on the worst night of his life. The Webby Awards recently nominated Dispatch in addition to awarding two other Here Be Dragons virtual reality experiences, The Last Goodbye and Tree. This month The Last Goodbye was awarded Best Virtual Reality at the AICP Next Awards and Dispatch was awarded a Gold Digital Craft Lion at the Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity.
