LA-based director Adam Wilson: “Working with VFX artist Luke Bellissimo and Studio Feather in Toronto, we created a visual treatment of Tenderness by American poet Joshua Edward Smith.

“The visuals are inspired by conversations with Joshua about his state of mind when writing the poem. Joshua described life from his perspective as, ‘a race against time with himself’. His struggle with identity and time is explored in the film by the repetition of his own image immersed in the world of a chess game against himself.

“The big challenge was creating photorealistic VFX and mixing them with layers of the artist captured using a motion control camera arm. The project took a great deal of planning along with storyboards and animatics to make sure we shot what we needed for Luke and his team to execute the VFX.”
 

 
Production: Goodbye and Milk
Director: Adam Wilson
Producer: Adam Wilson, Natalia Guled
Writer: Joshua Smith
DOP: Kris Belchevski
Art director: Robin Clason
Editor: Nick Deliberto

VFX: Feather
VFX lead: Luke Bellissimo
Colorist: Ana Escorse

Motion control: 2D House

Music: Deeb Ryan Haidar
Sound design: Chris Nungary