Fromm Studio

0:04 Right. Hello everyone. , thanks so much for joining us today and a big thanks to It's Neistat for having us. My name is Jess and this is Vince and together we run the 3D studio from.

0:12 So we create 3D work inspired by old English aesthetics and mythic narratives hopefully creating this sense of a new traditional. We use emerging technologies such as 3D scanning and AI motion capture which we use to try and bring a new life to brands, stories, and experiences. We describe our style as very colorful, irreverent, and somewhat romantic. And today we'll be talking a little bit about our process, our journey, and also our most recent project with Selfridges. And to kick things off, here's a sneak peek on what we've worked on through the years. ♪

1:00 [Applause]

1:02 Heat. Heat. ♪

1:27 So, a little thank you to So, a little bit about our background. We first met back in art school.

1:35 I did graphic design at Chelsea and Vince did fine art at Campbell. We first became a couple and then we started working together a few years later when COVID was happening which is also during our final year at uni. So around that time there was so much digital work coming out and we just really remember these videos made for Remy Wolf who had these digital versions of herself dancing.

1:58 We loved them so much that we wanted to make our own versions and only problem was we had just started to learn Blender. So going from that famous donut tutorial to an animated music video was quite a big leap. Luckily we did have a lot of free time because it was lockdown.

2:15 So we spent that summer figuring out ways how to make 3D versions of ourselves and that's when we discovered this process of 3D scanning. And we were very lucky to have an app called Polycam come out during the time that we needed it. It makes it very easy. You just need your phone. , it takes loads of pictures going around an object and it'll make a 3D model out of that and then afterwards we just take it into Blender and do all the fun things like the sculpting and the coloring in. So, a lot of our work inspired by British antiques specifically Saffordshire pottery. We love how colorful and unserious they are and they tell stories in such a whimsical way. , we actually own quite a few of our own safety dogs, figures, and Toby jugs, which we still mash up into our scenes, outfits, and props. And we think they really embody the way that we work. , nothing's too perfect. We love leaving sort of a handmade touch to our models, whether it's through the painting or the sculpting in Blender.

3:15 And I think our style is basically making room for mistakes that you can't replicate. So, 3D scanning covered our lack of modeling skills, but our next problem was making our characters move. , we both had no animation experience whatsoever. So, luckily we found Adobe's Miximo, which is an animation library where you upload your character and you can download a wide range of everyday movements and dances. So, now we had most things covered to create our first piece of work together, which is called Jess World. It's very vain, but , yeah, we were really limited on the things that we could scan as it was locked down. So, a lot of our characters are based on a mashup of us and basically anything that we could find at home. , at the start, we were just finding ways to make a music video as quickly as possible. , without having to technically model or animate anything, just so we could focus on the things that we found fun, which was the directing and setting up the scene. It was a bit like when you were playing a game of Sims. We'd drop in characters and objects.

4:15 So we did all the things you kind of shouldn't do when you start learning 3D which in turn created our own unique Frankenstein way of working and then we were then lucky enough to go on to use this process for commercial projects and one of the first ones that we got was for Spotify Brazil and this would mark the official start of from studio in 2022 and one of the main problems we came across quite early on was when clients wanted very specific movements.

4:45 Motion libraries are great for quick and smaller projects but for works like these they do require a bit more customization and like we said we didn't have any animation background so we had to find another solution for this which came in the form of AI motion capture sounds really techy but you just upload your character upload a video such as that and then it'll try and match those movements onto your 3D model. So, we started with filming ourselves dancing and as you can see, we were not the best dancers.

5:21 This is Vince trying to do some I think it was like some Brazilian rap music. It was Yeah, I don't know. It was something. But, yeah, we eventually figured out that we could use any dance video with dances that look a lot more professional than we did. , so over the years this has been really useful for specific dances and over time we've managed to learn the basics of animation through this which also got us ready for our first solo exhibition last year which was called Fedom and this was shown at Mother in London. So Fedom was a fictional kingdom we created to reflect on how we see traditional stories through the lens of a digital age. , we've always loved looking to the past for inspiration and kind of giving them a more contemporary feel.

6:06 And the stories that we based our exhibition on was St. Hilda, the Pied Piper, and St. George, which was shown on these life-siz screens by Kit Matter. Yeah. So, we were quite happy with how our work looked at the time. , we're always trying to keep that DIY element to it, somehow making the digital film more handmade. So, it started with our friend Alex Lee, who made these beautiful hand painted skies.

6:27 But we also thought, why not take it one step further and make actual physical objects for the show? Why not go full circle and take some of our digital work back into the physical.

6:37 And we thought it'd be quite interesting to balance out the shows with some real ceramics, especially since we take a lot of inspiration from them anyways. And we worked together with our friend Priscilla Pang and we created this workflow where we would 3D print the digital design, make a mold of the 3D print which we would then use to make a clay version and then after that it's all your typical ceramic stuff like all the firing and glazing and we were really pleased with how it turned out and we found it really quite interesting having this conversation between the physical and the digital between the shows. Yeah.

7:13 So this leads us really nicely on to our most recent project which was with Selfridges which we think is a culmination of all the things that we've learned throughout the years. We were really excited when Selfridges reached out to us last summer to commission us for this year's Selfridges Celebrate series. So for the last five months we've been creating bespoke artwork for their calendar events throughout 2025.

7:36 And pretty early on, it did feel like an amazing fit as it gave us a chance to do what we always do, which is taking inspiration from the past and giving it this newfound life through 3D. And all the calendar events have such rich histories and symbols. So, we didn't want to go too conceptual with it just because we did have a broader audience and we wanted it instantly recognizable for them. So, for Valentine's Day, we have our grownup Cupid and that was in his Elton John inspired outfit.

8:02 We have the mother's son and her flowers. , a flying moon and decorative arch for Eid. Our Easter egg balloons, a dad and dog rescue team, and then some witches riding off into a party. So, we really wanted just to keep this sense of fun and not taking things too seriously. So, that's when we decided we wanted this running theme of the sky throughout the collection. , just to keep things really light and have that sense of optimism, whatever time of year it is.

8:29 So this has been used across the beauty department, food hall, their website online and then also for different packaging. So chocolate bars, clothes tags and so on. So it's been a bit like a treasure hunt going visiting the stores with all their calendar events and checking their websites every few months or so trying to find our work.

8:48 And alongside this, we also got asked to design the windows down in Juke Street in London and also the regional windows in Birmingham and Manchester, which were shown from January this year up until April. , and it was really exciting that Selfridges was really open to our ideas at the start and kind of allowing us to essentially treat it as an exhibition space. , so I think we stuck with what we knew best and what represented from.

9:17 So the first window is called Lady on a horseback which is based off the Staffordshire horseback riders. We wanted to place the figure in a scene that captured our imagination. So she's in a typical British countryside riding through a forest chasing a butterfly. And this window is inspired by the tale of Camelot. We've always loved Aubry Beardsley.

9:37 So we took a lot of inspiration from him for the dancing knights in the middle especially with their outfits. And the four jugs were sculpted from a 3D scan we had of our own Toby jug and we just resculpted it into the characters of King Arthur, Queen Guiney, Merlin, and Morgan Lefay. Yeah.

9:56 And then lastly, this window is Grandma's mantle, which is a big blown up version of the Staferture figures in their natural habitat.

10:02 We have the three village dancers in the middle, and from a 3D scan of our own Staffordshire dog, we remixed it and made a corgi version, which is a breed you don't usually see in this style. And the sculptures were made by the lovely people at Millington's and we were fortunate enough to visit them a couple times especially during the winter break and they were so meticulous in getting all the details right and it was it was quite overwhelming seeing them for the first time to scale. Yeah. Just because how big it is and they really did such an amazing job at bringing our designs to life. Mhm.

10:35 So this project was a bit of a dream come true for us. Our favorite projects have always been that mixture between the physical and the digital work. So our Spotify project was in Brazil, so we never got to see it. Our Federom exhibition was very much like a smaller, more creative crowd, but with Selfishes, it's been a much broader audience. So it's been really magical seeing how people interact with the work.

10:55 We had so much fun making it and hopefully that comes across when people see it. And the London window displays are still up and I think there's a couple weeks left of them. So go check those out if you haven't. And of course, there's going to be a few more calendar events coming throughout the year. So hopefully you guys get to see those. And that's it from us. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. [Applause]