Compass Rose's Group is Ushering in a Craft Renaissance

The history of filmmaking in eastern Europe is rich and varied, calling back to the late 19th and early 20th centuries - just like Western Europe. First came silent film, with filmmakers from the region making significant contributions to the medium’s development on a global stage, like Sergei Eisenstein ‘Battleship Potemkin’. Under Soviet rule, the film industry was a thriving one, producing both propaganda films (as mandated by the ruling party) and influential avant-garde masterpieces, referenced by cinephiles to this day. 

This is all to say that filmmaking - short and long form - is native to the region and the craft is alive and thriving today. It then follows that some of the biggest global ads in recent memory were shot in the Czech Republic, Romania, and Bulgaria where the filmmaking is rooted in history while executed in firmly modern ways. 

In the age of tech-assisted everything, some brands are choosing to champion the practical, in-camera, and hand-crafted elements in their adverts that make watching something a real joy, and are heading east to get the shots and the expertise they need. We’re calling it a mini ‘craft renaissance’ and taking a closer look, with the help of experts from the Compass Rose group - Icon Films Sofia and Icon Films Romania at the way they were thoughtfully crafted. 

The team at Icon Films Sofia know a thing or two about building moving sets and props for the biggest visual impact. The team’s biggest challenge to date is undeniably the multi-award winning ‘Flip’ for B&Q where, as you may have already guessed, a whole house gets flipped upside down. While some elements were achieved with SFX, the majority were down to the skilled craftspeople who figured out a way to build and make a whole structure really flip.

“It all started with a sketch of the whole rig on a piece of paper and a request for a space (a studio, a hangar, a warehouse, etc.) with very tall ceilings, around 20 meters high. We were expecting that once we went into production, some practical elements would be kept, but simplified technically and construction-wise. At the end of the day, however, we built it exactly as it was drawn by Oscar [Hudson, director] on that very initial piece of paper,” recall Icon Films’ producers Emil Rangelov and Beba Yordanova. 

Neil Andrews, producer at Pulse Films, was aware from the start that this spot was a huge challenge on all possible fronts. “We had a list of very specific requirements like building a six storey structure with the ability to flip 180 degrees, which sounded near impossible. We gathered a list of countries together that have a strong track record of large scale builds with a focus on quality and speed of production, alongside a reputation for over-delivering on high quality service with value baked in.” Bulgaria was the winner as it more than delivered on all fronts. 

Neil credits the “ingenuity of the SFX, art department and production teams to problem solve actually producing the rig” needed to flip the structure. The difficulty and realism of what’s in the final spot cannot be overstated. “All of the action with the talent was shot in-camera: the whole rotating transition from the old house to new house was entirely in camera with the life-sized flipping set. A large part of the background neighbourhood area, done as a set extension, was created by an architects’ studio, by manufacturing a set of miniature flipping house scale models. The aim at all times was to keep it all as practical as possible, and to achieve as much as possible in one shot,” Beba and Emil explain. 

The final product was a joint effort from the producers and art department, engineers, and physicists - everyone’s skills were needed to make the idea real. “The main task at hand was finding a way to have a 180 degree rotation of the structure, with such a speed that the time for its rotation from the start to the end would be exactly the same as the actual time of the action in the final edit. Of course, we had to figure out how to control the speed and how to have a soft start and soft stop of the movement in order to keep it safe and comfortable for the talents and crew that were on it,” Beba and Emil add. Neil says that everything was made by hand and “absolutely nothing was off the shelf”, showcasing just how much craft and expertise went into the making. 

It was Neil’s first time shooting in Bulgaria and the experience left him more than impressed. “Bulgaria was a spot on location for this project. We needed a lot of a highly skilled crew for each part of the production. Thankfully, Sofia has a long history of feature film production, which we tapped into to pull off the design and make the set in only a few weeks. We also benefited from the local stunt team’s experience on large scale features - they really were the unsung heroes of this production,” Neil says. 

Why is Bulgaria a great place for productions that are looking for elaborate sets and hand-crafted details, we ask Emil and Beba? “Bulgaria has a long tradition of filmmaking, from the A-list Hollywood movies all the way to the high-end TVC shoots, providing very experienced crews, who have a proven track record of professionalism and expertise. This makes Bulgaria a great location choice for any kind of film production; we provide a world-class service, especially for projects that require construction builds, SFX and stunts with a high production value in a very cost-effective way.”

Filmmakers have long been turning to Romania for the country’s ability to provide incredible locations coupled with craft experts and favourable budget value. This can be seen in Hornbach’s practical effect-filled ‘Square Meter’ spot which has already won at the LIA Awards and is shortlisted at the Ciclope and Shots EMEA Awards. Last year’s Netflix smash hit ‘Wednesday’ likewise made Romania its production home; both were made possible with the help of Icon Films Romania.

In Magnum’s ‘Take Pleasure Seriously’ spot, the Icon Films team - lead by producer Alma Bacula - was tasked with creating a fairy-tale world of glamour to convey the ice cream’s luxurious taste. Propaganda’s producer Pablo Martinez opted for practical sets and effects in order to ground the spot in a sense of materiality, opting for VFX to sprinkle in the final magical touches. “Real sets give a more realistic feeling to the film and they also help the action and the choreography. Dancers and models interacted with moving elements making it seamless and natural. However, we have also used VFX to enhance and create the magical world we aimed for,” he explains. 

Director Martin Werner initially wanted to shoot on location in a historical building located in Constanta overlooking the Black Sea, but this proved too logistically challenging in the middle of winter. Instead, local art director Serban Porupca and production designer Peter Grant created a set that combined art deco and art nouveau elements for the magical ice cream factory, with the shoot taking place on stage in one location in Bucharest. “Shooting in a real space when there’s quite a lot of choreography is better. You have the freedom of moving the camera 360 degrees and being spontaneous with finding the best angles to shoot,” says Alma.

The production was smooth thanks to everyone meeting on the same page technically, creatively, and aesthetically. “Martin Werner introduced me to Alma Bacula who he had been working with before, and art director Serban Porupca, who had the same aesthetic sensitivity as our production designer Peter Grant. The location options, art department and costume craftsmanship, as well as the value we received for our budget, made Icon and Romania the perfect destination for this project,” says Pablo of his experience.

More and more filmmakers are turning to Romania, and Icon Film in particular, to help achieve their grand visions. This doesn’t surprise Alma who stresses that “Romania has a very high level of craftsmanship in terms of its art departments among other crafts.”

“The level of detail that can be obtained working with artists: sculptors and painters combined with modern techniques like CNC cutting or vacuum mouldings resemble those used on epic films. The quality, speed and value one gets when building in Romania is a great asset for any production. But this is not the only department where Romania is a valuable destination. Highly crafted wardrobe manufacturing, as seen in this spot, as well as skilled crews across departments continues to make Romania a one stop destination for filming.”

Looking at the spots in question, it’s clear that the hand-crafted and the tailor-made side of filmmaking is not going away. If anything, the ‘age of AI’ is reiterating the magic that in-camera effects have on viewers and the sheer joy everyone takes behind the scenes in making the impossible happen on set. We’re calling it a craft renaissance and may it last for decades to come.