“We Do Cool Shit”: Meet the Studio Where Revolutionary Tech Meets Creative Simplicity

Over a century ago, in 1907, Scientific American magazine published a breathlessly excited front page. The Telharmonium - a technological breakthrough in sound recording - was about to take the world by storm. “No musical instrument of any kind is employed!”, trills the cover article, marvelling at a machine which was capable of producing ‘orchestra-like’ music simply by pressing a few keys. 

Looking back, Scientific American was right to build the hype. While they couldn’t know it at the time, the Telharmonium was a collision between classical tradition and cutting-edge modernity which essentially created electronic music. From that moment forward, music could be made, in the words of the magazine, without musical instruments.

So it makes sense, given that blend between creative quality and technical wizardry, that the founders of Create This can all draw on a background in electronic music. For partner and creative director Irfan Nathoo, cinematographer and director Simon Thirlaway, and director of operations David Cannava, electronic music was the formative creative playground in which they cut their teeth. 

Now, their intoxicatingly unique studio is pulling off a similar trick across events, ads, films, and more - taking the traditional values of creativity and welding them together with new technology that’s changing the game. “Electronic music is our personality”, says Irfan. “It’s about mixing analog and digital to make something that’s completely our own”. 

And the result is a studio which, thanks to the trio’s efforts alongside technical director Byron Quinones and 3D artist Eric Clavel, can’t be ignored. 

Going Underground

One of the problems that comes with being on the cutting edge is that it can be hard to pin down everything you do in the vernacular of the modern industry. For Create This, it’s probably best summarised with the studio’s cheeky - but perfectly accurate - tagline: “We do cool shit”. 

They certainly do. “We’re putting together an immersive 3D projection map and laser show for a rave this weekend”, says Irfan. “We’re using our XR stage which is pretty mad, but we wanted to sort of gift it to the underground because we love it!”. 

But when the Create This team aren’t blowing minds at the weekend, their day job is creating unforgettable content for some of the biggest brands imaginable. The likes of Nike, Facebook, the NBA and Virgin Galactic - alongside artists including Billie Eilish and Selena Gomez - can all be counted amongst the studio’s client base, and their work invariably draws upon the tech which helps to define the studio’s USP. 

At the heart of Create This’ offering is a 35ft x 24ft UV mapped projection volume, part of a suite of tech capable of putting out photo-realistic environments and audio reactive visuals amongst near-countless other abilities. On the software side, the studio has a versatile track record including Unreal Engine, Houdini, Touch Designer, Notch, and Resolume. Despite all that, however, it isn’t Create This’ technological knowhow which has ensured their success to date. Instead, it’s their attitude. 

“Every project is so different, and we love that aspect of what we do”, says Simon. “But what unites a lot of our work is that we can simply get it done, and get it done in tight timescales thanks to the tech we can use when we need it”. 

Irfan, nodding his head in agreement, is keen to stress that Create This is about more than an impressive XR stage. “There’s an attitude in the underground music scene which we really love to emulate, which is all about a strong work ethic. When it needs to be done, it gets done”, he says. “Because, sometimes, it’s just showtime”. 

Showtime

And it’s when the show starts that Create This truly begins to shine. Their can-do attitude was visible as early as their work with 7 Diamonds - a landmark project for the team. “That was all about raw energy”, recalls David. “In fact, that was one of the first times we ever used the XR stage”. 

Above: Create This’ work with 7 Diamonds was an early sign of the studio’s technical chops in action. 

From that moment, the team’s ambition was to go from strength to strength. Perhaps the best example of their potential for out-of-the-box creative ideas was Rival Speak - a digital show hosted by Wil Wheaton which ran as a companion to the three month-long interactive media experience Rival Peak. The show blended influences as broad as Tamogochi and the Hunger Games to create something that - fittingly for Create This - was unlike anything else out there. 

Above: Beloved sci-fi legend Wil Wheaton fronted Rival Speak, a beguilingly unique gameshow-esque project powered by Create This. 

“In the future, we’d love to start looking at creating our own content”, reveals Irfan. “And I think Rival Speak will probably be a bit of an inspiration for that - it’s sort of like the gameshow of the future and I know we could pull off some really incredible things”. 

There’s another reason why Rival Speak has proven to be such a formative project for the Create This team - the schedule. It was a hugely ambitious project put together on such a tight timeline that, in reality, it’s a wonder that it exists at all. 

“The shoot and edit had to be done and delivered on the same day”, explains David. “Some editing was done overnight, then quality control the next morning, and it was broadcast the following evening. We just figured that was normal!”. 

It’s within that anecdote, however, that Create This’ value - and maybe its mission - becomes crystal clear. In the world as it is today, our media environment is so fast-paced that it demands flexibility and that ability to turn on a dime where required. However, in juxtaposition to that, the industry as it exists today can be lethargic - built in the image of an old media world where time moved more slowly. 

Perhaps the best way of explaining Create This is to say that the studio has not been built in the image of yesterday’s industry - but rather of today’s world. That ability to pivot - picking up and putting down technology as required rather than relying on it exclusively - feels perfectly-pitched to cater for the pressures of modern creativity. 

It’s not a bad place to be for a studio so defined by the culture of electronic music. It’s fast, it’s artistic, and it’s capable of defining culture. Just like the Telharmonium one hundred years ago, Create This is a studio which feels like the beginning of the future.