Behind Meta and Droga5’s Futuristic Vision of African Cycling
Endeavouring to showcase communities who are utilising and pushing the development of proto-metaverse technologies, Meta teamed up with creative agency Droga5 and production company Love Song to create their virtual reality vision, ‘Amani’.
‘Amani’ comes from the name of the east African cycling team that the film focuses on - a group of 12 cyclists who Thom Glover, ECD at Droga5, says “leapt from obscurity to become a force in world cycling purely via remote races during the pandemic.” He continues, “They were a perfect example of how these technologies are beginning to break down barriers and level the playing field.” The film shows how the team uses Meta’s existing products (WhatsApp to communicate across borders, Instagram and Facebook to update their followers) and also gives a glimpse into how the cyclists could benefit from the future tech that Meta is currently building.
In a tragic turn of events, the captain of Team Amani, Sule Kangangi, passed away at a high-speed cycling race in Vermont before the film’s release - adding an extra layer of significance and importance for the team, Sule’s family and the film’s creators to promote the aspirations of the cyclists and honour Sule’s legacy. Ben Muckensturm, senior art director at Droga5 says, “Beyond the effect on the campaign, what was truly tragic about Sule’s passing is that this race was a major milestone for the team. We were excited to see [Team Amani cyclists] Sule, Jordan and John compete in Vermont. The point we were making about technology enabling athletes like Team Amani to participate in new ways, who could then compete against the big league cyclists and show their talent to the rest of the world, was all happening in real life. John and Jordan came in first and third in that race.”
The spot uses prototypes and depictions of future technologies that arose from discussions with Meta to paint a picture of how VR, AR and other metaverse tech could soon be implemented in new, fully immersive sporting experiences without the need to travel as an athlete or spectator. Bringing in legendary independent filmmaker and innovative camera-rig inventor, Tony Hill and directorial duo ILLIMITEWORLD, the film captures a look into the future through a stylish and experimental lens that encapsulates the energy of both the cyclists and the futuristic technologies on display. Having these creative minds with lots of original ideas was “paramount” to achieving this, says Thom, who was keen to not just make “another cycling film or another Africa film.”
Ben adds, “We had ideas on how to execute both the current and future, but we really leaned on our directors to help us thread them together in a way that felt authentic and exciting. ILLIMITEWORLD’s treatment was full of fresh and experimental ideas on how we could capture cycling footage in a visceral way, using rigs to maintain a circular motion throughout the film to bring both live-action and CG scenes together. They had also researched the athletes themselves and were already thinking about how we could tell the story of Team Amani as a group while also focusing on them as individuals - with a clear distinction between the past, present and future.”
On Droga5 and Meta’s previous collaboration, ‘Skate Nation Ghana’, the agency’s executive producer Mike Hasinoff explains that Daniel Wolfe - director, Love Song co-founder and executive producer on ‘Amani’ - developed a “unique directing structure” that allows the director to function as a creative executive producer across all parts of the production, acting as a senior guiding voice for a team of younger, up-and-coming directors. It’s this combination of experienced guidance with innovative youthfulness that gives ‘Skate Nation Ghana’ its “freshness”, says Mike, explaining how they replicated this unique filmmaking dynamic on ‘Amani’ and pushed it to the next level.
“Not only did we have ILLIMITEWORLD, Daniel [Wolfe] and Dan [Williams, The Mill ECD] in Africa for all the prep and shoot days (along with DPs Diego Garcia and Shawn Peters), we also created a space for three younger director’s assistants to get on-set experience. On most shoot days, we had as many as three different units capturing footage at any given time. Some days, we had as many as seven different cameras capturing footage. Assistants were thoroughly briefed by ILLIMITEWORLD on what they were after, then each director and assistant owned their own shots and setups. I’m pretty sure our final film brings in shots from everyone.”
Ben describes the east African shoots, involving an international crew, logistical challenges in remote locations and months of pre-production planning as “a life-changing experience” - all of the cogs in the machine (or gears on the bike) working tirelessly to film Team Amani cycling through the heat at altitudes of up to 7,900 feet.
Seeing these elite African cyclists for the first time, pushing their limits on gravel roads was “very eye-opening,” says Marleaux Desiré, one half of the directing team ILLIMITEWORLD, calling Team Amani “one of east Africa’s best-kept secrets” making an impact on a white-dominated sport. Taking inspiration from Claude Lelouch’s short film ‘Rendevous’, the directors spent five months writing, directing and editing to encapsulate the intensity of the riders racing through African landscapes.
“The dynamic of having a mentor like Daniel Wolfe alongside a super creative agency like Droga5 creates a stomping ground for ambitious ideas. Everyone wants to make something dope, and nobody seems scared to try different ideas. There’s no holding back,” says Marleaux. “The amount of research and references we pulled and then flipped into our own style was also wild. Our director’s assistant, Louis McCourt, was our secret weapon. We spent days watching every film and documentary about cycling and then brainstormed ways to make those classic ideas our own.”
This free-form and organic approach to filmmaking is the way that ILLIMITEWORLD always works, he says, explaining that breaking tradition and rules allows the duo to educate the next generation of directors on creating through intuition, and without becoming bogged down by ego. “It was extremely refreshing to create an advertisement in this way.” Using their intuition to decide “what shit needed what” and implementing Tony Hill’s innovative jump rope, bike and SnorriCam rigs, the directors featured a wide variety of shot types and cameras throughout to represent the past, present and future of Team Amani - including a rather inventive opener, filmed using a Super 8 camera attached to a drone.
Marleaux says, “We wanted to be able to have a lot of texture; shooting digital doesn't really offer that, so we brought everything from Canon Super 8s to infrared cams, DV cameras and even had a Fisher Price camera that was rolling on set. One of the film’s main motifs was our use of circular spinning motion to take us through time and space. For this, we reached out to legend Tony Hill for his unique rig setups.”
Whilst there was certainly no remote work on this project, there were definitely some remote shooting locations - which provided some unique experiences for the directors - especially when compared to the rules and regulations of LA that often “kills the joy” of the filmmaking process.
Marleaux adds, “One experience I will never forget occurred while scouting an alley location in the town of Iten. We stumbled across a local movie theatre and I was surprised when they opened the door and it was a pitch-black room about 800 square feet with an 18-inch TV set playing [Donnie Yen’s] ‘Ip Man’. The audience’s eyes were glued to the screen. It was a humbling experience, and it reminded me of how engaging cinema can be regardless of the conditions.”
Other moments of inspiration and excitement came from filming the cyclists from the back of a moving car with a handheld camera fitted with a 100-millimetre lens to capture the team’s expressions as they cycled through the mountains, as well as the more raw and naturally beautiful footage of the athletes in Nairobi, which served as a form of portraiture. About these frames of the film, the director says, “I really love those shots because they stand out more than anything else to me. Like the moment we see John, one of our cyclists, holding the mirror to his chest and the light reflecting in the glass - that frame looks like an album cover. Honestly, it’s a shame we couldn't have used more of them.”
After wrapping, ILLIMITEWORLD flew to New York and - over the course of a week - edited almost two days worth of footage alongside ZED’s editors Dom Leung and Amber Saunders. According to Marleaux, this process “brought the soul and spirit that was needed” to the track, combining the footage with The Mill London’s VFX and even involving the composition of an original soundtrack from ILLIMITEWORLD’s in-house producer, Bobcat Goldwav.
“Locking an edit was the hardest part of the process,” says senior art director Ben Muckensturm. “With so much to say and all the incredible footage we’d acquired, we had to try many, many versions and keep finessing our film until the very last minute. Editor Dom Leung is the true hero of this project. Creating the fully CG metaverse scenes was also challenging. There are so many details to consider when building a world that is still being shaped, like imagining what a futuristic boardroom would look like if created from the perspective of our east African team, or how graphics would show up on AR cycling glasses.”
He adds, “This was also our first time working with motion capture, which was a big thrill and learning experience for us. We filmed all our CG talent in the metaverse scenes using motion capture so the team at The Mill had references to work from. It was a big challenge to bring the metaverse into ILLIMITEWORLD’s very unique filmmaking style. This was a close collaboration between the directors and Dan Williams’s team at The Mill, and we were blown away when we started seeing actual WIP shots that replaced our pre-vis placeholders.”
For Mike Hasinoff and Thom Glover, this project became more than just another engaging and experimental piece of work for Meta, with Mike saying that ‘Amani’ and ‘Skate Nation Ghana’ have “added purpose” to how they bring work to life. Describing the projects as “massively creatively satisfying” and “inspiring to collaborate in such a deeply meaningful way with our directors and creative partners,” the executive producer says they have shifted conversations about working with younger talent - both inside and out of Droga5.
“For both of us, film craft now extends past concept and construction - team building and the overall experience for everyone involved improves the quality of the work. And it’s so gratifying to see these principles spread to other creatives and producers.”
Whilst Meta’s existing communication products and its new augmented reality technologies may provide people with the hope that they can one day - like Team Amani - participate in their wildest dreams, it’s this evolved approach to filmmaking, being performed at such a high level and with great trust between collaborators, that is what gives Marleaux hope for the future of advertising.
He says, “We need to create with faith over fear; that’s the only way things like this can get made. I'm really proud of this piece, and I think it will open new portals in the creative process for advertising.”
