In line with the Bohemian-chic fashion trend taking hold this summer on women from coast to coast, M.A.C. (Makeup Art Cosmetics) is promoting its summer collection D’Bohemia. Yet the in-store video that the team at creative studio Plus et Plus, New York, created for their client refers to an age prior to the loose 1960s and ’70s. In the almost two-minute long “D’Bohemia,” the style of the 1920s comes to the forefront through enhanced black-and-white photos and postcards that capture the era.
The film, which is playing in M.A.C. stores around the world, opens with a close-up of words being written across a page. The thoughts continue to scroll across the screen throughout the piece while the images move from illustrations to photos and back. All the while, a mix of jazz music adds to the feelings of excitement and nostalgia.
The creatives at Plus et Plus knew their client wanted to use postcards in the piece and set it in the ’20s. They also needed to incorporate a key image–it is a still photograph of a model in a golden bathing cap whose look is created with products from the D’Bohemia line.
“The bleached-out blues and sandy tones and some of the deep reds are actually taken from their color palate,” art director/designer Judy Wellfare explained. “We actually receive make-up samples and color swatches from the line and we do work those in so there is a very close tonal match to that season’s color range.”
The words and phrases that appear throughout the video are not connected to one another; they are simply meant to explore, through journal entries and correspondence, a day in the life of a woman who lived at this time. “It’s basically snippets of moments to evoke the sense of glitz and the bohemian lifestyle of the 1920s. There isn’t actually a story as such,” Wellfare said.
Creative director Jeremy Hollister explained that they used collage animation as well as traditional frame by frame stop-motion animation in the piece. The latter of which helped achieve an old-time feeling as the pen and ink move across the screen.
“We wanted to use a simple camera move as our device to take you through the film, which would connect back to the technology of the time,” Wellfare added. “We wanted to make it feel as genuine as possible. And then at the same time we created elements using 3D and then brought them all together in After Effects for the actual animation process.”
The music that accompanies the piece in-store is not the music that the team at Plus et Plus selected for the video, but they knew that in advance. The video plays along with a lengthy mix that is on a loop in the stores. The music the creatives at the shop selected does run with the video when it is used as a corporate sales tool at meetings and events. Independent sound designer David Abir helped create the short mix of jazz the Plus et Plus creatives selected.
Additional credit at the creative studio goes to Jenni Kim, designer/animator; Jonathon Leong, lead animator; Seth Pomerantz, animator; Haelim Oh, calligrapher; Zu Al-Kadiri, producer; and Barry Hollister, executive producer.
The team at Plus et Plus worked directly with the internal creative department at M.A.C.: James Gager, senior VP/creative director; Toni Lakis, VP/design; Matthew Parr, executive director/design; Maria Gustafson, executive director/design; and Cindy Carrandi, producer.
