Sparks fly for Airwallex

The new campaign for financial technology platform Airwallex is a beautifully realised black and white campaign that shows how the spark of inspiration has led to so many inventions and innovations.

Created by Uncommon Creative Studio and directed by Sam Walker through Creators Inc, Sparks is an ode to ingenuity, celebrating the relentless spirit that sees opportunity everywhere.

Opening with the jolt of an alarm clock before revealing a sequence of human innovations, starting with the humble zip and cycling through, to name a few, jazz music, the car seatbelt, the umbrella and the defibrillator, each presented in its pure, functional form. 

As the 90-second film progresses, these inventions begin to take on a deeper, more emotive meaning: a typewriter becomes 'freedom', a baseball game becomes 'entertainment', and a spacesuit becomes 'progress'. The film culminates in the line: "They all started with a person. They all started with a spark. Make those ideas happen."

The film was shot in-camera and crafted using a rotating rig, creating a seamless, kinetic sequence that continuously reveals each scene, which mirrors the momentum of ideas in motion, and the continuous whip-pan camera technique was created with director of photography Chayse Irvin.

“We wanted to capture that fleeting, electric moment when an idea first comes to life — the spark," said Walker, Global Creative Partner at Uncommon Creative Studio, and the spot's director. "It’s irrational, it’s urgent and it’s deeply human. By celebrating the inventions that shaped our world, we’re reminding people that every breakthrough starts small — and that’s exactly the mindset Airwallex exists to support.”