As the third day of activities commence in Pattaya, Thailand for ADFEST 2019, there are still so much to discuss from yesterday’s events. From virtual to augmented reality, the Fabulous Five premiere, and more finalists announced, here’s a roundup of everything you should know about ADFEST Day 2:
To start off the day, we visited the workshop on VR and Ambisonics: Creating the Future of History with Marco Biemann of I Am Cardboard PH and Vic Icasas & Dennis Cham of Hit Productions who shared with us their journey to introduce fully immersive VR (Virtual Reality) dioramas to visitors in the Ayala Museum. The project had to be dubbed in two languages only to be scraped out, and the guys talked about how sound played a major role in really making the VR experience worthy of revisiting the history of the Philippines.
Leslie Hodgin had a wonderful presentation on The Changing Face of Retail and how companies are upping their ‘brand’ game by paying attention to the consumer’s retail experience. She cited building community, creating convenience, defining lifestyle are what modern shoppers look for in this new era of retail. She shared insights from companies such as Nike, Samsung, Innisfree and Gentle Monster that have been quick to adapt and implement this into their overall experience as brands, building the future of the retail and store experience.
The third set of LOTUS finalists were announced midday, causing a burst of excitement from agencies and companies all around the region. The categories were Design Lotus, Innova Lotus, Lotus Roots, Outdoor Lotus, Press Lotus and Print Craft Lotus. The full third list of finalists can be found here.
Emile Rademeyer of VANDAL talked about Augmented Reality is the Future of Advertising and how a great idea can change human behavior. He shared with the audience how VANDAL and Virtual Immersive, partnered with World Square to create a unique digital experience for Lunar New Year — transforming the physical space into an interactive digital space for everyone to enjoy and interact with. Both the Lunar New Year 2018 Year of the Dragon and 2019 Year of the Pig went on to became such huge hits online in Australia and worldwide, proving that advertising’s future is to not only sell products or ideas, but to digitally transform entire environments with an augmented, digital overlay.
Definitely one of the highlights of this year’s lineup of activities was the return of the Fabulous Five (formerly “Four”), an annual short film competition for young commercial film directors all over Asia Pacific and Middle East. From its previous years, Fabulous Five has opened a tantamount of opportunities for aspiring commercial directors, and has been seen as a platform for kick-starting one’s career. Working around year’s theme “TMRRW.TDAY”, the following directors were selected by the Film Craft & New Director Jury out of 49 submissions from 11 cities around the selected regions:
- Jo Motoyo, Director from Tokyo/Taiyo Kikaku Co., Ltd., Tokyo
- Mai Murata, Assistant Director from Dentsu Creative X Inc., Tokyo
- Naoto Mitake, Director from AOI Pro. Inc., Tokyo & Directors Think Tank, Kuala Lumpur
- Rin Soejima, Director from AOI Pro. Inc., Tokyo
- Tomu Yamaguchi, Director from AOI Pro. Inc., Tokyo
Each film created by these five rising directors premiered yesterday, all filled with amazing cinematography, visual magic and storytelling, but one film in particular caught the attention of the audience for its unique message.
It is uncommon to find a Japanese family who is Muslim, and even more so to have their only son marry a Muslim woman after being away for several years. This is the narrative that Naoto Mitake wished to discuss in his short film, Pray. The young director who is currently working at AOI Pro.’s group company in Malaysia, Directors Think Tank, took inspiration from his own personal experiences and the cultural differences between Japan and Malaysia.
Pray, along with the rest of the Fabulous Five’s films are set to screen publicly sometime this April.
To cap off the day’s celebrations, ADFEST hosted another party by the Lotus Pool with food, cocktails and a fun game involving matching stickers and limited edition freebies.
