Fa & Fon

0:06 So we're Fa & Fon creative directors graphic designers 3d animators illustrators the list goes on based in london but you know if anyone wants to give us another job offer like maybe sydney yep yeah.

0:21 So so we want to talk about what we do and how we got into the industry and just our work and what we want to do in the future so my background personally is in graphic design I studied at central st martin's didn't do a very good job nearly failed was told I was gonna fail but I did a lot of volunteering internships a lot of personal shoots because I was just like I'm not going to leave uni and not get a job.

0:51 So I feel like that kind of helped towards shape like towards shaping us get into the industry quicker rather than kind of having to wait.

1:00 And then intern for another year or two after uni so we started at second year of uni yeah I went to csm as well.

1:08 And I actually failed because I was just partying loads so there's not a lot to say about that just I'm still in debt though so as you can see our work is very digital based we first started with green screen so we are very much proficient in graphic design so that's kind of where we started we did a lot of green green screen shoots because people kind of that's what people wanted that's what our clients wanted so that's what we gave them. And this is during the time like a few years ago.

1:46 This is during the time when people. Actually wanted like the green screen kind of yeah we're very like pop arty like any pop culture inspired by kind of our asian heritage and anime manga comic books anything.

2:01 That's like super fun which is such like it's the complete contrast as to what we were feeling at the time we were very like dressed in all black like super csm but our work that we were like being churning out was like the exact opposite because I think it just helped with the old depression which is fun so this is a fila I think this was in 2020 to know 2019 ages ago yeah and this was obviously the spring summer as you can see we kind of we did the the art direction and the actual final edits and the graphics for it. And it was you know inspired by akira fast and furious yes sookie you know her the one that was wearing like the really hot one that's wearing like chaps yeah.

2:55 So yeah she's our kind of minions bow for that.

2:58 And then motocross obviously yeah the brief was pretty much like we wanted to show females in like a cooler light rather than a typical like pink in a bedroom kind of kind of style it was originally the naughties and it was gonna be I think the brief was I'm trying not to about the brief but like it was an originally like bedroom bedroom with like those plastic chairs and that kind of thing we were like no let's put some bikes in because why not we have the budget so and this is more kind of our toned down kind of work that we do as well.

3:41 And this is our photography so that's a bit more toned down. But we love duplicating people. But there's a filter for that now.

3:47 So we've moved away from that not as fashionable so and yeah this is kind of like a combination of the two and we were like really like fantasy and so we definitely want to combine like this surrealism and like fantasy and flying yeah yeah the brief for this. Actually because this is for converse spring summer 2021 19 2021. And the topic was elevation.

4:22 So we literally took it was like we're gonna elevate ourselves because you know what that's the actual brief and this was during lockdown and like it may look nice now.

4:35 But we were literally balancing on ladders it wasn't very safe at all just the two of us balancing our ladders with like a timer and a camera with a wind machine popped up yeah our brother was standing there with one of those like glass blowers and they literally like a stone flew into my eye and then.

4:56 I had like to go to hospital so yeah it was like gotta take the shot yeah another one from the elevator series again lying across planks on ladders very very stressful but also fun yes take take a chance and then what we also wanted to talk about was that you know our gradual kind of move into moving image so obviously we worked a lot with stills we dabbled in moving image a bit like you know like 10 seconds but we've recently just joined riff raff who's a production company and we're now going to do like music videos and then more like short films because I think that's just an actual progression that most designers take most still designers take to kind of just move along in their design career yeah and it's more kind of just playing like real life kind of shooting because we've always shot against green screen and I think that limits you and you're constantly thinking about like is that going to show up how is the hair looking and all of that so where you know it we're finally doing kind of like more set design and the more kind of interesting stuff and the fashion you know you can wear translucent stuff and mirror stuff and not have to worry about like you missing a chunk of your like torso you know yeah but so having said that that is also green screen so yeah literally yeah that's a that's what we did recently for the bbc which is to do like an ident for them again that's with the riffraff yeah maya drama is so fit in real life she's like oh my god yeah that woman some music videos we've done in the past which I think helped us get you know signed with riff raff yeah which is very dreamlike not something we're very used to yeah.

6:54 I think we're just trying everything because there's money in it.

6:58 So yeah sorry I deal with stress with like humor so this is yeah and then.

7:10 That's the filo as well and that it wasn't really meant to be a video alongside but I think when you look at stills and the narrative and you kind of build the stack you're always going to gravitate towards trying to turn it into a movement somehow or at least we try to and then you. And we also try to incorporate kind of our knowledge with stills and see how that might work with yeah I mean it's literally the same thing stills and moving images just telling along the story.

7:44 So that's what we want to do now we will still do stills though if anyone wants to do commissions like yeah yeah.

7:52 So this is a video we did for home gallery in 2019 which was a personal project.

7:57 This is what we did with it's nice that for their tick tock idents which I think is still our favorite project yeah just so because we also do 3d animation as well it's nice to be able to do combined 3d animations with green screen real life.

8:16 But this was literally quite earlier on. And I was actually looking up on blender how to do like an explosion or like a simple render so we really yeah we really finessed that one and then we're just going to talk a bit more about this music video because I love it and essentially we just watched lord of the rings and then this was what came from it yeah because the original brief was so the process is we we get approached by the the label which was sony for this one and they approached us through riffraff and then they kind of asked us you know do you want to pitch on this this pitch this board for a superhero theme.

9:03 And we were like you know what I don't really want to do superhero theme can we just do like a fantasy theme with swords pitched it to a to a few people. Actually to the label to the artist mo and then. There was a lot of back and forth and then finally they kind of accepted it.

9:24 And then we kind of just got going really yeah it was really seamless actually so maybe we shouldn't have talked about this one yeah and oh I'm really obsessed with swords and we had like these really cheap wooden swords but they arrived to set broken and then they gave us these real ones and it was just it just literally made my day so yeah. So yes this is what we want to basically go into just like a longer story telling more of just a snippet in time. And I think music videos is a good way to do that.

10:02 And then gradually I think we want to go into like short film which we kind of did with home gallery but yeah that wasn't like you know long enough and that was very early on in our career so hopefully we can kind of gravitate towards more of film in the future maybe maybe yeah we'll see we'll see the stress levels yeah I might just have a meltdown and just move to like the maldives or something. But yeah that's it right yes thank you thank you