How Ariel Fisher kept it moving for ON

Choreographer and movement artist Matthew McCreary stars in this free flowing contemporary spot for ON, by falling down some stairs, swinging round a lamp post, cartwheeling past everyone and and chucking his clothes away!

The 45 second film showcases skilful in-camera craft and some characterful choreography from McCreary. We hear from Director Ariel Fisher, and composer and sound designer Joaquin Pastor, who turned a simple idea into a dynamic visual metaphor for resale and reuse platform ON.

How did the concept for Keep It Moving spot come about?

The concept came from the creative team at ON as a way to bring to life their Cyclon program. 

We wanted to show that, rather than being discarded, clothing can take on a second life as it passes from one owner to the next. The idea was to make a film that never stops moving.

When ON reached out, what was your first reaction?

I really admire ON’s point of view as a brand and the way everything they put out into the world feels considered. I’ve also been a fan of Matt McCreary and love the way he moves through the world. It always feels like he is in a conversation with the environment. It’s not just choreography, it’s performance art and it’s always curious. Choosing McCreary for this campaign felt really compelling to me, and the fact that we were paired together was serendipitous.

It’s not just choreography, it’s performance art and it’s always curious. 

I was equally excited that the message of this campaign was about sustainability. I had to blink twice when they told me we didn’t have to include three second close up’s of products and could focus on telling a story through movement. It’s really exciting as a director to work with a brand that prioritises this type of storytelling in a world moving more and more towards the algorithm.

Can you walk us through the locations for the shoot? And how did they influence the movement of the characters?

McCreary’s work is environmental so we wanted him to help guide locations that inspired his style of movement. It was really cool to watch him interact with things on the street that would otherwise go unnoticed. It could be a shadow or a piece of scaffold but he's always workshopping. In-between takes you could find him dragging himself along by the scissor lift which could have very well been the whole film. Because this was a spring campaign we shot in Buenos Aires which has long daylight hours and beautiful light. We shot within a two block radius of the downtown, mostly because that was the best way to not get hit by cars.

McCreary’s work is environmental so we wanted him to help guide locations that inspired his style of movement

Also a lot of our cast were non-actors. I like to street cast when possible so shout out to our producer Jennifer Gelin for always making those requests happen. The first mechanic scene was a real family shop and almost everyone in the scene were the people who actually worked there. We also saw this kid on the scout recording dance routines on his phone, I loved how natural it all felt. So we cast him to perform the same thing in the same clothes for our background. Characters like that are hard to write and create a scene that feels layered like a real city.

Above: Some BTS videos of Matt McCreary and Chloe Reynolds on location.

At what point did Matt McCreary come on board with the project?

We brought Matt on in pre-production. I mean the whole campaign was inspired by his movement and he always picks his own locations for his videos so I wanted to merge his process with ours. I wrote the first version of the script and then we would refine it together with Edouard Le Grelle the DP on location during our rehearsals. Le Grelle and I would then go back to our 'haunted' hotel and re-time the test footage to an animatic. It was a very collaborative, iterative process.

Above: Matt McCreary having some fun on set.

Were there any standout challenges or highlights during the production that you’d like to talk about?

Time was the biggest challenge, both in length of film and with our one shoot day. The film is only 45 seconds and that isn’t much time to tell a story without it feeling like a montage. Matt’s work has breathing room so most of the process was a balance of simplifying enough to create character and movement while still registering the passing of the ON items.

The biggest highlight for me was that this felt like making work with friends even though it was a commercial. The entire crew was really invested and the ON creative team had a really trusting and collaborative way of working which often leads to better ideas. We all put our heads together and solved problems and the process felt in service of making the best possible film within our limitations.