Psyop: Non-stop Psyop

Psyop co-founders Marco Spier and Todd Mueller can barely contain their glee as they tell Simon Wakelin all about their recent projects and the thrilling developments in digital animation technology now at their disposal. Founded in 2000, the company has been busy attracting attention from Cannes, Clio, Emmys and more for their groundbreaking work, such as Coca-Cola’s Wearable Movie and the multi-platform piece Nightmare: Malaria.

Since opening shop in New York back in 2000, award-winning design, animation and VFX house Psyop has maintained a strong reputation for animation-led campaigns. Today the company continues developing its technology and talent, creating engaging content for high-profile clients such as Xbox, Coca-Cola, UPS, Converse, adidas, HP and FedEx. Marco Spier and Todd Mueller, who founded the outfit along with Marie Hyon, Kylie Matulick and Eben Mears, are beyond excited about today’s invigorated ad scene, evolving technology and the potential of digital animation: “We’ve reached a point where technology allows us to deliver visually-rich, interactive content in real time,” explains Spier. “Tools such as Unity allow our artists to build high-performance, 3D-rendered worlds and create immediate, emotionally-engaging experiences.”

Psyop has of late been busy launching several interactive and cross-platform projects, including campaigns for McCann-Erickson and David & Goliath, an interactive graphic novel for Fanta, an animated short film for Coca-Cola, and their latest creation Nightmare: Malaria – Psyop’s first iOS and Android video game created in collaboration with the Against Malaria Foundation (AMF). Nightmare: Malaria is a deliciously dark fairytale, created to raise awareness and funds to battle a disease that, according to the latest WHO figures, caused 627,000 deaths in 2012, 77 per cent of which were of children under five.

The game was inspired by Nightmare, a PSA made last year by Psyop’s non-profit initiative Establishment for the Greater Good (EGG) – a mentoring programme that brought together talented students from around the world to create visual content highlighting a social cause. In the spin-off game, players are dropped into the bloodstream of a young girl infected with malaria, then challenged to escape from 13 levels of bad dreams, while having to evade mosquito attacks by using nets. Both featuring the voice of actor Susan Sarandon, the game and PSA are part of a multi-platform campaign to promote awareness of a simple fact – that mosquito nets are an incredibly effective way of saving lives.

Haunting melodies and sound design from music studio Q Department and its founder Drazen Bosnjak further accentuate the experience of Nightmare: Malaria, its soundtrack evoking a sense of unease in the players as deadly swarms of mosquitos circle in the shadows. “Sound was a very important aspect to the game,” explains Spier. “Q Department was the perfect choice. I asked the team to create a scary soundtrack that reminds you of hearing a mosquito buzzing around you at night, but you don’t know exactly where it is. They did an amazing job. The sounds affect you while you’re engaged in the game and help you understand the danger at hand.”

“What I really enjoyed about creating the game was the dialogue we had with the players,” continues Spier. “Out of 582,000 downloads only 302 people have beaten the game so far– and I think that’s actually a good thing. We had feedback from the audience and tweaked some of the physics in the game to help them out. I love that – it’s a whole new level of interaction.”

A proliferation of platforms

Mueller notes that getting the audience to engage is always high priority for Psyop’s campaigns. And nowadays, with so many different platforms available for communicating with the audience – from TV, radio and print to digital, social, interactive, experiential and more – it is interesting to see how the industry is responding and adapting. “Psyop’s in-house designers and developers are continually working on bringing fresh levels of artistry from the broadcast side of the business into new, exciting spaces,” he says. “We are being asked to take our skills in directing, design or programming and apply them to the 360-degree marketing efforts.”

The technology now used has also become fast enough to enable the reshaping of a strategy during production. “We often find ourselves solving strategy on-set,” Mueller continues. “You can see the [product] evolving before you and can mould a campaign’s identity almost in real time.”

Mueller notes that Psyop’s enthusiasm for using ideas that can be expressed in any number of ways also hinges on client trust. “Smart clients know that you don’t have all the answers, and you all need to move forward together knowing that,” he says. “No one really knows how the flower will bloom, but when you have an open dialogue you also get to produce work effectively and efficiently and work out how best to deploy the material. We’re being asked more and more to consider strategy as part of the production process.”

Discussing the success of the company and how it has survived uncertain times, Spier speaks of the importance of continually pushing boundaries: “It’s how we were successful early on,” he says, “we focused on taking visual effects, 3D and other software packages and working with them in new ways to create fresh, compelling content. I think that’s definitely happening today – especially with interactive – where we are finding ways to use technology in slightly different ways.”

“We’ve also been very successful at finding and mentoring new people while building a strong pipeline to support them,” adds Mueller. “We’ve always been a very artist-focussed company. All the [company] owners are artists and we know what it means to be passionate about the work. We understand how to balance passion with the diplomacy you need in client relations. None of us are egotists. We do have healthy enough egos to do the work, but we really care about everyone’s happiness and success. That’s something we’ve always stayed true to.” The company is also keen to help new talent develop: “Mentoring young artists has always been an enjoyable process for us and has helped build what Psyop is today,” elaborates Spier. “That’s why we decided to create EGG as a way to continue that trend, show talented artists the way Psyop works while focussing on important social causes.”

Complex campaigns

Spier looks forward to wrestling with new technologies and creating fresh opportunities for brand narrative. He makes a compelling case that the best way to enjoy a story is from within. “Market changes are exciting because we feel the restrictions of the 30-second spot have finally been lifted,” outlines Spier. “Our stories are now being given the time that they deserve. We are just super excited. Nightmare: Malaria is just the beginning of many exciting projects we are working on that will develop content we believe people will willingly seek out. We can’t wait to get them out there for people to explore.”

With multifaceted campaigns, however, there is a certain amount of grappling with the unknown. Mueller explains that creating any new form of engagement is an incredibly complex but exciting exercise: “It’s taking what is inherently, incredibly complicated and turning it into some kind of cohesive, real-time art. It’s like taking a shattered window and making a snowflake out of it.”