In Praise of Detail

How do you tell the whole story of a life in just a few minutes?

For me the most satisfying (and moving) answer to this is the opening to the movie UP, where director Pete Docter weaves the tapestry of Ellie and Carl’s lives in just four minutes with as much depth and pathos as any 19th century Russian novelist might achieve in 700 pages.

When it came to the brief for this year’s State Lottery Christmas ad, we felt if we could just aspire to be mentioned in the same breath as work of this quality, we would be happy.

Much like the John Lewis Christmas ad in the UK, the annual State Lottery film has gained a reputation as the benchmark of heartstring-pulling seasonal storytelling, so the stakes were high. The aim of the script was to bring to life the idea that, confronted with a choice between the possibility of love and winning the lottery, there would be no contest – our hero would take a chance on love.

It’s one thing to tell a story like this. It’s another to make people believe in it, and still another to care.

To pull it off, we came up with an idea that transported our character forward in time, inserting him into snapshots of his own life, years in the future. This meant realising not just one convincing world, but a dozen or more. From the eccentric curiosity shop where he finds the device that makes his journey possible, to an intimate moment in 2078, a sailboat in 2056, a hospital delivery room in 2032, a moment of humour on holiday, a karaoke bar, his wedding day, a song around a campfire, a late night argument in the rain, skinny dipping at midnight, a new year’s eve celebration – it all had to be brought into existence with movie-level realism.

The human imagination is an incredible phenomenon. Provide just enough stimulus, and we’ll build the whole story around it inside our minds. But it’s also discerning. If even one detail is off, the veil falls away, and we’re conscious we’re watching actors in a set, rather than characters we care about.

For us this meant leaving nothing to chance. Every single one of these setups was treated with the same level of attention as if the whole piece rested on it. That meant having dedicated production teams and resources on each – and a client who gets it and understands what real craft demands.

For me, the success of something like this boils down the three key principles, which apply as much to any creative endeavour as they do to filmmaking.

1: Absolutely *do* sweat the small stuff.

For example, when it came to creating the Curiosity Shop where our hero finds the device that drops him into the story, we had a bunch of well-loved movie references in mind. From the classic Chinatown emporium where Billy finds Mogwai in Gremlins, to Hannibal Chew’s freezing workshop in Blade Runner, to the souk in Raiders of the Lost Ark, the detail made up the whole. Every prop was considered a critical part of the story itself. There are no inconsequential decisions.

2: Work with the best – and respect their craft.

In a world of increasingly commodified creativity, where people are becoming used to the idea of conjuring things into existence with a simple text prompt, it’s easy to forget the difference that craft and make. The more I work with AI platforms, I become more confident about the continued importance of human craft and creativity, not less. There is no replacing long-finessed practical skill, like the Hollywood-standard ageing makeup we employed for our opening ‘jump’ into the future. We knew that in many respects the story rested on this. If you didn’t believe this was our guy 50 years in the future, but instead saw a young guy with a load of latex on his face, we’d lose you. The level of artistry that goes into this kind of work is just astonishing, and a joy to see. Of course, it’s not enough on its own. There are hundreds of other decisions around it, from hair to wardrobe to art department that pull the threads of this, and every scene together.

3: Start with ‘the thick end of the wedge’.

In any major production it can feel like things start small and then gradually ramp up in intensity and complexity as you approach the shoot, then dive into post production and the long process of finessing and iterating up to the deadline. But actually it pays to reverse that framing. The key decisions that you make up-front – most critically, casting, but then on location and production, will have much more Influence on the final result than anything you can pull off in post. These decisions are what will determine whether the work is beautiful, or just ok.

Finally, and most importantly, don’t mentally downgrade or dismiss any aspect of your work. Whatever you’re doing, whether it’s a piece of content for TikTok, or a big end of year spot, or a feature film, if the pictures are moving, you’re making movies. Of course, no one is expecting Marvel style VFX in your Insta post. But they will respond to a great script, the right casting, the perfectly chosen prop, the expertly timed cut.

It’s easy to think of this business sometimes as frivolous. But a good story, well told, can bring a moment of joy to millions of people. It can make somebody’s day; or even change somebody’s life. And there’s nothing frivolous about that.