‘Eyecandy’—inside the new visual library of film techniques for art directors

Art directors tend to stockpile visual references—stills and GIFs from movies, shows, music videos and commercials that can serve as a useful shorthand in presentations to explain how they see a spot unfolding visually. In advertising, having a lot of these visual references in your back pocket is seen as a competitive advantage. But now, one art director is democratizing that inspiration—by collecting, organizing and sharing a vast number of film techniques, for free, so anyone can access and reference them in their daily projects. Ad Age Creativity Bookmark our section covering the best in brand creativity every day Read more here The new collection, called Eyecandy, is a side project of Wieden+Kennedy Portland creative Jacobi Mehringer. It launched March 28 (via this LinkedIn post) with 400 references and has quickly ballooned to more than 2,200 as creatives have flocked to it—and have even been sending Mehringer their own libraries to include. Also read: Creative director experiments with AI The site got more than 4,000 visits on launch day, more than 12,000 the next day, and is now growing faster than Mehringer ever imagined. “I’ve worked with Lawrence [Sher], who created ShotDeck [a free library of film stills], and I always wished there was something like that for visual techniques,” Mehringer told Ad Age. “A lot of art directors are told, ‘If you find a great reference, don't share it. That's your secret weapon.’ But the coolest thing has been all these creatives reaching out and saying, ‘Hey, this is awesome.’” The Eyecandy homepage has links at the top to dozens of techniques. Clicking on each one leads to a page full of GIFs showing the technique in action. This is useful for those who don’t have a strong filmmaking vocabulary and prefer to search visually, Mehringer said. “I would say 80% of people, myself included, don't know what a lot of these shots are called,” he said. “Like the ‘Split Diopter.’ That’s where you have a refracted lens and you've got two things in focus. It’s better to set it up like a Pinterest board, where you can go through visuals and click on the ones you like.” Other techniques include Tiny Planet (distorting panoramic footage and transforming it into a spherical projection); Pedestal Shot (moving the camera vertically up or down while the tripod or camera mount remains stationary); Lazy Susan (keeping the camera at the center of table and panning left or right, as though the camera were on a lazy susan); Object Portal (using an object as a visual transportation to another scene or world); and many more. The site has been so popular—230,000 pageviews from 90 countries to date—that Mehringer is already building out new features. He’s added deep dives to explore shots in more detail; artist spotlights on filmmakers known for certain shots (e.g., Edgar Wright’s quick cuts, Wes Anderson’s whip pans, Brian De Palma’s long takes, Quentin Tarantino’s crash zooms or even Wong Kar-wai’s step printing); links to press coverage and other informational articles about a technique; subcategories, breaking down categories with more specificity; and a Wall of Fame thanking site contributors who’ve sent in material. He’s also getting interest not just from people looking to reference techniques, but from filmmakers wondering how to actually employ them. Including that kind of technical information could be a growth area down the road. Check out the latest Ad Age events and award programs “A lot of people from my field see this as a way to sell in an idea to clients. But editors or videographers or directors are like, ‘That's a cool shot. How do I make that?’” Mehringer said. “I was thinking, selfishly, how would I use it? So it's been interesting to think bigger about what this could be in five years.” One thing Mehringer said he’s sure about—he doesn’t want to turn it into a business, or sell it to someone who would do the same. (In fact, he said he’s already turned down one offer.) “A few people looked at this and said, ‘You should do a subscription service, make money off this and retire. But that goes against the ethos of it,” Mehringer said. “It’s like the website Activation Ideas. That's a phenomenal website. It's not a business. It's one guy running it, and people love helping him out. That’s what I hope this can be—where people feel like they can add to it.” Good karma aside, Mehringer thinks it would just be better for the industry if more people shared their knowledge and insight, rather than safeguarding it for themselves. “Visual technique shouldn't be a competitive edge. Your concepting should be,” he said. “Let's say, five years from now, everyone's using this and no one has that extra advantage. I think that would be a good place to be.”

‘Eyecandy’—inside the new visual library of film techniques for art directors

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