Our consumer-driven world economy gets an eerie and apocalyptic treatment in these VFX and animation sequences created by Compost Creative in London for director Nic Stacey’s documentary BUY NOW! The Shopping Conspiracy.

From the team at Compost Creative: “BUY NOW! exposes the secretive world of the planet’s most influential brands and the techniques they use to keep us buying.

“The challenge from the director was ‘How do we make this film fun and still deliver the message?’ Our answer was to make it beautiful, make it bold and funny, terrifying and shocking. The visual style of advertising turned back on itself.

“The VFX are a mix of dramatic simulations composited into footage filmed on location in NYC and wider aerial shots. We were given data on real-world quantities of e-waste but also freedom to create visually arresting scenes. The viewer didn’t need to know how much waste was on screen but they needed to have an emotional response to the scene.
 

“The challenge from the director was ‘How do we make this film fun and still deliver the message?’ Our answer was to make it beautiful, make it bold and funny, terrifying and shocking. The visual style of advertising turned back on itself.”

 
“TyFlow was used for all of the hard surface object simulations as it did an incredible job with large volumes and high poly counts. Houdini was used for the cloth simulations as it delivered consistent results with little or no artifacts in the cloth movement.

“An After Effects datamoshing technique was used to distort cheesy stock video content for sequences involving SASHA, a faux AI character Nic Stacey invented to subvert the narrative of the film and guide the viewer through the corporate playbook to success.

“Cel-animation was chosen for sequences within contributor stories as it gave a human touch to these moments. These whistleblowers were going out on a limb in the film and deserved a sympathetic animation style.”
 
 

 
Production: Grain
Writer/Director: Nic Stacey

VFX/animation: Compost Creative
Director: Colin Thornton, Neil Wilson
VFX Artist: Tomas Koza, Assim Kumaka, Becky Vicars, Katleen Kattnig, Nik Maund, Ryan Wintle
2D Animator: Hannah Privett, Ka Hei Heiley Chiu, Chris MacDonald, Sam Jewitt
Motion Designer: Hokun Tsou, Henry Esterson, Yafang Hsueh, Beth Archibald, Oliver Weinfeld
Assistant Producer: J.S. Young
Production Coordinator: Genevieve Weatherburn, Orla Smith
Finance Manager: Alex Lewis