Twin visualists Freise Bros join Contagious for spots and longform content
Directing duo Freise Bros has joined Contagious for exclusive US spot and branded longform representation.
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Directing duo Freise Bros has joined Contagious for exclusive US spot and branded longform representation.
Known for cinematic, effects-driven storytelling such as the short Tesla Motors film, Not A Dream, twin brothers Adam and Nathan Freise have been featured in SHOOT’s New Directors Showcase and Up-&-Coming Directors feature, and honored with the YDA (Young Director Award) at Cannes. The Freise Bros’ showreel features similarly attention-getting work for PATH, ON Shoes, and Acre Designs, among others. Previous roosts include RSA Films and Biscuit Filmworks. They recently completed their first Contagious assignment, Dear Sports, for adidas Golf, via Vitro.
“There’s something magical about Nathan and Adam, the images that form in their mind and the tools they use to make it real,” said Contagious Executive Producer Natalie Sakai. Case in point, Dear Sports brilliantly positions adidas Golf as the Creator Golf Brand by showcasing the power, passion and drama behind the sport. Through the use of non-narrative effects-laden storytelling, the spot calls all creators to join adidas on “the greatest canvas in sports.” Freise Bros not only directed the piece, but handled all the VFX as well.
“We didn’t have a lot of action sports on our reel, but the agency said they were looking for something different - and they meant it,” Freise Bros said in a joint statement (“We can never remember which of us said anything anyways,” said one of them). “The creative team at Vitro really stepped up with faith and support for Freise Bros and we can’t thank them enough,” added Sakai.
“We wanted to work with someone on our new campaign that could show the creative side of golf that isn’t often captured, while staying true to our Creator message at adidas,” said Courtney McHugh, senior director, global brand marketing, adidas Golf. “The Freise Bros impressed us with their ideas from the get-go, which led to a great collaborative process to bring our story to life.”
“Natalie and the Contagious team are exactly the community we want to be a part of,” the duo said of their new home. “Contagious advocates for our style of filmmaking while providing incredible support and infrastructure. This lets us focus on cinematic storytelling, and what we truly enjoy - the kind of immersion that keeps us close to the grit of production and post.”
On Not a Dream, the Freises did all the camera work and VFX themselves, somehow creating a spec piece that felt much bigger than the sum of its parts. It went viral after Elon Musk tweeted that he "loved" it. He subsequently invited them to SpaceX, quite a journey from their beginnings in Union, MO. Now Venice-based, Adam and Nathan both went to school in Kansas, moved to Chicago, spent time in New Mexico and New York, studying design and architecture before accepting that their true passions lay in animation and film. For postgrad, Nathan chose to study computer animation at School of Visual Arts (SVA), while Adam studied design at Columbia. Sharing his brother’s interest in computer animation, Adam applied to be Nathan’s thesis adviser. “It was a paid gig, and we were doing a lot of this stuff together already,” Adam mused. “It was the beginning of getting paid to do what you’d do anyway.”
Freise Bros’ style can be summed up as follows: Small footprint, big impact. One of the team’s first spot projects was for small Swiss brand ON Shoes. Called Break Barriers, it was an original idea that the brother pitched to numerous brands. In the spot, triathlete Lesley Patterson breaks the sound barrier. It was a small narrative, but cinematic, and driven by VFX. Likewise, The Pioneer for Acre Designs - another direct-to-client project - draws on the bigness of the world through a child’s eyes, telling a story of ambition, imagination - and hope for a better future. Of their directing process, Freise Bros said, “We like to DP ourselves, with Nathan behind camera, and Adam with talent, communicating in ‘twin language.’” Do they always get along? “We have arguments, but we share the goal of wanting what we do to be the best it can be.”
