Rohtau on Innovation and Love of Authentic Creative Collaboration

At the end of last year, Rohtau worked on a music video for Zedd, 'Lucky', directed by Carl Addy and Ben Smith, and produced by The Mayda Creative Co. The brief was “creatively ambitious, particularly for the time and music video budget,” the Mayda team says, but they were up for the challenge after wanting to collaborate together with Ben and Carl for a while. 

Though Carl and Ben’s vision was particularly ambitious, it was exactly the kind of creative work that Rohtau was made to take on. “A job like this, although it has a clear direction and a cohesive concept, often is largely improvisational. You just don’t have the time or the budget to do it exactly the way you want to. This is when I like to ‘compromise upwards’. Practically, this means we work closely and constantly with our partners, to pivot fast when an experimental process doesn’t work. It goes without saying that you need to be working with agile and experienced talent to work like this,” explains Carl.

Rohtau says: “It was always going to be a challenge to complete the over 40 VFX shots within the few weeks and this restriction was made even more acute by the creative excellence that we all strive for, BUT with a relationship of true collaboration, we all knew it was possible and so we all dived in with that energy.” 

While “Carl and Ben created the aesthetic and narrative,” says Jordi, “like every true creative collaboration, we had lots of input and questions to solve, and the journey was one of discovery for everyone; a constant dialogue that put us at the heart of the creative, the film-making and address complex execution and artistic challenges.”

The solutions were a mix of different tools and techniques – some to create the environment, others to animate the camera and the driving force behind the visual language. “Lots of Cinema4D and Houdini, lots of AfterEffects and Nuke, even Insta360 Studio software to process material and spherical tracking done in 3DEqualizer. Carl notes that he chose to work with Rohtau because he “knew Jordi and his crew shared a passion for modern filmmaking and the integration of the latest tech tools,” making them the right partners to experiment and find the best VFX solution possible.

And while the work has to speak for itself, what few people know is that they report on the CO2 impact on every project (477kg C02 for ‘Lucky’). They are proud of this open approach with the full report available on the company’s website.

When Rohtau encountered that their well-established pipeline wasn’t best serving them on this project, they changed track. The result was freedom to move and explore, which paid off big time,” explains Jordi. “We adapted like we always do and questioned everything.” 

This project in particular gave us a chance to mix old with new techniques, and we do love a challenge so we proposed utilising an Insta360 RS1 camera and Carl and Ben embraced the idea knowing it would elevate the vision. We always try to push the boundaries, that’s what we’re here to do – make things stand out and have fun doing it,” adds Josh. Since the video came out, we’ve had great feedback and feel ‘Lucky’ it was featured on EyeCandy’s features of 2024.

The Rohtau crew ended 2024 on a high with a brand new spot for Lufthansa from Serviceplan Germany, directed by Niclas Larsson titled ‘All It Takes Is a Yes’, produced by Iconoclast Berlin. The story was shot on 35mm film by Niclas, who mixed various formats from, 3-perf, 4-perf and even 8-perf to capture and communicate emotions of this beautiful story.

Collaboration was crucial to getting the final spot looking as good as envisioned. “As a director, or ‘creator,’ if you prefer, you’re constantly bombarded with advice: what to do, what not to do, what to think about, what to ignore, and so on. That’s why I’ve learned to value, above all, my careful selection of collaborators. To preserve both your sanity and your vision, it’s crucial to surround yourself with a few, carefully chosen people you trust. In fact, it goes beyond trust - it's a matter of shared ambition. For that reason, working with Jordi Bares and the way he runs things at Rotau is ideal, we share the same level of ambition. It’s rare, but invaluable,” says Niclas.

With a heavy focus on compositing, Rohtau worked with an experienced crew who had worked with celluloid, hand-picked from their global network of trusted talent, to deliver the quality expected. The end result was thirty screen replacements and over a hundred shots of compositing. And still nevertheless produced admirably low levels of CO2e, 170.30kg, with the full report breaking down how this was made possible here.

Looking at these two different projects, the common thread is clear: collaboration and smiles at every step.