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WATSON DESIGN GROUP
Ava, backed by its own, hand- coded AI. The post captured hundreds of matches from unsuspecting SxSW attendees, who engaged in conversations that began with questions like
“Have you ever been in love?” and “What makes you human?”
Although hundreds of responses on social media may not seem like much, Watson/DG got what it wanted—press attention. In short order, more than 50 news outlets, ranging from Time to WIRED and Mashable to Vulture, were reporting on Watson/DG’s SxSW catfishing exploit.
“We broke a few hearts in Austin,” Delaney says, laughing. “Turns out, there are a lot of horn dogs at SxSW. At least some of them got to see Ex Machina for free.”
What’s a nice guy like you doing in a place like this?
In Hollywood, which is home to an industry typically driven by status, backstabbing and the bottom line, Ramirez is
a relationship guy. His big break came when a friend of his took a plane ride seated next to an executive at Paramount Classics. They exchanged business cards, and the next thing Ramirez knew, he was invited to pitch a website for Hustle & Flow.
“I’m super lucky,” Ramirez says, shaking his head in disbelief at getting the gig. “I’m not a business guy—I’m a designer,” Ramirez says. “But I know how to balance passionate creatives on one side and clients on the other.” Ramirez cares so much about the integrity of his work that he actually got fired from a job for refusing to change a color on a website. “I know how to deal with people like me,” he says, “but I also understand the real business needs of the client whose main goal is to sell a ticket.”
It’s a business need Ramirez has been able to fill since 2005. Forming Watson/DG with a developer, Ramirez went on to create websites for Black Snake Moan, Tropic Thunder and The Darjeeling Limited, before being tapped to create three viral sites for Cloverfield in 2007.
Digging into Cloverfield, the team at Watson/DG discovered one of the characters wearing a T-shirt for Slusho!—a fictional Japanese drink. So they built a website where fans could “make” their own Slusho! using different flavors based on
a secret ingredient that came from somewhere deep in the ocean. They made Slusho! T-shirts available for purchase on Amazon. They even designed a generically crappy website for a fake multinational company called Tagruato and its advanced technology division, Bold Futura. A map on the Tagruato site that locates deep-sea drilling operations hints at a critical plot point in the movie. It also hints at the depths to which Watson/DG is willing to go.
“Instead of building an electronic press kit, we built an experience,” Ramirez says. When Cloverfield was launched, Ramirez remembers, Watson/DG was able to attract a huge amount of organic attention by doing something different. “It changed Watson/DG in Paramount’s eyes,” he says. The result: more and bigger-budget projects from Paramount and a slew from other movie studios, including Fox Searchlight Pictures, Warner Bros. Entertainment, Disney, Lionsgate Entertainment and Universal Studios.
Today, Watson/DG’s adventurous use of technologies like WebGL—a real-time graphics library that enables the use of advanced 3-D visuals, games and data visualization in a web browser—has liberated the studio from the constraints of static websites. With the ability to incorporate new levels of depth, motion and interaction, Watson/DG’s microsites are becoming ever more cinematic. Using snippets of film, illustration and sound, the sites engage the viewer, invite sharing and whet the appetite. Moments of drama lifted from Spotlight are grainy and compelling. Clips from Amy suggest the same dramatic arc as that featured in the Amy Winehouse documentary. On the Tumblr site of Me and Earl and the Dying Girl, GIFs emulate the low fidelity of a high school senior’s film project.
All the stops came out for Birdman, winner of the Best Picture Oscar in 2015. In an attempt to capture the spirit of the main character’s tenuous state of mind, Marholin designed a website that combines GIF animations, clips from the movie’s sound track and a brilliant use of keyboard inter- activity that displays quotes from the characters. As a meteor streaks out of the sky in a 3-D animation, pieces of the falling star flake off into fragments. Click on one to play a movie clip. It’s a bravura piece of WebGL site design, one that stays remarkably true to the volatile emotional core of the film.
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Illustration Annual 2016
Right: “A fully immersive companion to The Grand Budapest Hotel, Akademie Zubrowka (akademiezubrowka.com) takes you deep into the history of the beloved fictional country where the film takes place. This course syllabus comes complete with microfiche slides filled with layers of discoverable content, including hand-colored photographs, original props and in-depth stories. These elements came together to form a crash course on the industry, art and local government of the Republic of Zubrowka.” Fox Searchlight Pictures, client.
“A film filled with humor, insights and an unstable grasp on reality, Birdman was an opportunity to give audiences an authentic taste of director Alejandro González Iñárritu’s singular vision. The improvised drumbeat became the sound track to the experience as visitors used the keyboard to navigate film moments and quotes. Social content played up the film’s sarcastic tone and incredible ensemble cast.” Fox Searchlight Pictures, client.