Title: "Le Sens Propre" (short film)
Client: Adobe
Product: CS4 (Creative Suite 4)
Campaign Title:
The Shortcut To Brilliant

Agency: Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, San Francisco
Creative Director: Keith Anderson
Associate Creative Director: Tony Stern
Associate Creative Director: Frank Aldorf
Art director: Jon Willard
Copywriter: Jesse Gazzuolo
Broadcast Producer: Brian Coate

Production Company: Blacklist, New York
Director & Writer: Cisma
Executive Producers: Aaron Kisner, Adina Sales
Producer: Cassie Hamilton

Live Action Production Services: Margarida Flores E Filmes, São Paulo
Executive Producers: Paulo Schmidt, Fabiano Beraldo
Production Coordinators: Ingrid Raszl, Thais Freire
Production Director: Adriano Gobbi
Director of Photography: Pierre de Kerchove
First AD: Janie Paula
Second AD: Livia Duclerc
Casting: Flavia Cocozza
Stylist: Daniel Ueda
Wardrobe Assistants: Rita Lazzarotti, Kali Leuzzi
Production Designer/On Set Art Director/Scenography: Olivia Helena Sanches
Art Assistants: Amanda de Freitas Coelho, Ana Elisa Arietti
Set Technicians: Santana Cenários, Lindolfo de Jesus Santana, Jose Fernandes Dos Santos
Props: Sergio Heineck, Juliana Matsuki
Props Assistant: Mariana Herman
Props (toys): Verônica de Oliveira Kehl
Storyboard Artist: Renato Blaschi
Location Scout: Alexandre Rocha
Stager: Helio Villela Nunes

Stop Motion Animation: Animatorio, São Paulo
Post Production: Illegal FX, São Paulo
Post Production Coordinator: Francisco Ruiz
Editor (Premiere): Marcio Soares
Colorist: Daniel Dias
AE Compositors: Daniel Dias, Pedro Gebara, Guilherme Correa, Luis Costa
AE Rotoscoping: Rogerio Merlino, Marcelo Martins, Marcio Martins, Diego Rock

Music & Sound Design: Paulo Beto
Mix: Joe Ramos, Big Joe Sound, Santa Monica



Notes on Adobe's
Shortcut To Brilliant campaign and Cisma's "Le Sens Propre" from Keith Anderson, Creative Director, Goodby, Silverstein & Partners.

The Shortcut To Brilliant campaign is part of Adobe's marketing efforts for CS4. All of the work is based on the idea that with Adobe software, the creative professional can take an ordinary object, and with their inspiration and Adobe tools, turn that object into something extraordinary. The new features and time saving enhancements in CS4 allow that process to happen more efficiently which leads to more improved work flow.

As part of the Shortcut To Brilliant campaign, we asked artists in various disciplines to use CS4 to create a piece of artwork. The brief was open-ended, it simply required that the starting point be something ordinary, simple, and that the artists take that and apply their imagination to it and see what happens. We provided each artist with an “equation” of CS4 products to use in creating their piece and challenged them to create the most amazing, engaging content they could with the prescribed Adobe tools. With Cisma’s piece, his motivation was to make a film where the way you tell the history is more important than the history itself. It’s a symbolic, dream-live voyage in the universe of a little girl, where what you see is not always what it means.



Q&A with Blacklist's Cisma on
"Le Sens Propre" for Adobe.

What was the brief on this project?

Basically it was a 98% open brief and the only requirement was to do everything using Adobe Products exclusively.


Why did you choose to write and create a short film?

Since Adobe products are more about filmmaking and didn't really need me to communicate a specific message, I took that as an opportunity to make an experimental film focused on art direction and creativity. My goal was to hold the attention of the viewer by the way the story is told and not the desire of knowing how it's going to end. I also tried to make the visual language the most important aspect of the film.


Like your films "The Fly and the Eye" and "Handmade," "Le Sens Propre" is based in live action. You mix graphics, visual effects and in-camera tricks to create a surreal world that seems to be as much about the act of perception as it is about the film's subject. Do you agree with this assessment? Is this something you intentionally try to achieve?

Exactly, I think differently from animation, films based in live action are way too close to reality, it's an immersive experience, our eyes believe on what we are seeing as it is happening in front of us. But because of that I think that there's too little space for personal interpretation, some films in live action are just hypnotic and don't really make you think.


Tell me about how your approached making "Le Sens Prope"?

Given the creative freedom of this project, I first started to create strange scenes and weird connections between elements of the story in the universe of a little girl.


What is your favourite moment in the film?

My favorite part is the donut sock scene, I remember when I was a child taking out my socks like that.


What was the most challenging aspect of the project?

The most technical challenge was to not use any 3D software in a visual effects film but at same because we have this limitation we have an even more organic and real result because many of the effects were made on camera, or using a lot of shooting plates.



Stills from "Le Sens Propre"

















Production Stills from "Le Sens Propre"