STATEMENT VFX OPENS DOORS
As a collective of creative minds working in advertising, music videos, entertainment and original content, Barcelona-based post-production boutique Statement is dedicated to crafting compelling visual experiences with cutting edge technology and impeccable client care. With Managing Director Joan Amat at the helm, who has an extensive and strong background in VFX arts and successfully running VFX studios, the company’s collective expertise in creative direction, editorial, color, VFX, motion design, CG animation, and 2D animation are all huge assets to the Twentyfour Seven group, and we are pleased to join forces with them and support their creativity and innovation. We spoke with Joan to learn more about the company’s origins, the technologies they are exploring and leveraging, and how building community helps them offer superior client service.
Tell us more about Statement. How did the company start?
Joan: Statement began when we decided to create a new post house with my own philosophy. After all the years working for other post companies, I thought we could do better and offer something different to our clients, where they could enjoy working with an involved collective of artists with different specialties. I had the opportunity to join forces with the Twentyfour Seven Group, as some of them were friends of mine as well as past clients, and thought it could be a perfect match as our visions were the same. They wanted to expand the group into the world of VFX, so it made sense to do so with me.
Founding Statement was a great opportunity to start something from scratch, but also take advantage of all the new technology and remote cloud systems that now exist. We invested a lot of time analyzing new technologies and learning from consultants, engineers, and resellers to find the perfect balance to be as fast and efficient as we could.
Since the beginning, I wanted to find a good balance between what we already know and new technology in a way that affords us speed, flexibility and scalability. We also wanted to commit to reduce our carbon footprint to promote sustainability.
What prompted your interest in sustainability?
Joan: When I started out working in post houses, everything — workstations, render farms, etc. — ran on electricity. I wondered if we could simplify this, or find some way to avoid having to use all of these resources at once. That’s why with Statement, we decided to go cloud-based and to significantly reduce the number of machines in our office. This way, we’re able to do just as much work while also reducing our carbon footprint and our environmental impact.
Tell us more about Statement’s company culture and how that impacts projects.
Joan: We're a small team of only 13 people, but each of those people are incredibly talented. We also have a majority of women on staff, which is important to us as this industry has historically been male-dominated. Our office is a mix of people working across specialties, from VFX Supervisors to CG Artists to 2D Compositors. Since we are cloud-based, we can work entirely remotely if we want, but we wanted to offer that in-person space as well because we wanted a place to mix different typologies of art and try new things. We feel that involving different artists and organizing activities to develop new skills helps to create a healthy environment where people can come to learn new techniques and play around with what we are testing.
At the end of the day, we all share the same outlook on our work, and we are all very motivated to succeed. We all agree that the most important thing is to be side by side with our client throughout a project, and to try to offer and deliver something better than they imagined. We always stay close and help our Directors to succeed with their own ideas, problem solve, and prepare everything we can even before a shoot. Those are the kinds of things a client can expect from working with us.
Why is collaboration and community so important?
Joan: Over the years, I’ve learned that it is essential to have very good relations with other companies in our field, and to work together when possible. Joining forces allows both parties to expand their reach and take on even bigger projects than they were able to before. By working with other post houses, we’re able to learn and share from each and complement each other in case we have different services offering a full service to our final client.
At our Barcelona office, we host community events like drawing sessions and speaker events, and we invite people from all the companies in town as well as freelancers to join us so they can learn with us. We’ve created a space for artists to congregate, to work on projects, and to nurture each other and build community.
How is Statement using AI in your work?
Joan: In the spirit of challenging ourselves to make something entirely new, we have opened a small lab that explores new AI technologies, which we're implementing more and more with pre-production, with VFX, and when it comes to trying to automate things with machine learning. I know there is some fear around new, relatively unknown technologies like AI, which is understandable, but for us it's just another tool. You just need to be measured in your approach, and our artists have a good understanding of what the limits are and how far they can push it. We’re not making things entirely using AI, but right now, it is working wonderfully as a tool that we implement as part of our initial project explorations. It gives us a lot of liberty by creating many more points of view in the same amount of time. If a director gives us 4 days to do research and development, we’re now able to explore 20x more looks than we were otherwise. So it’s giving everyone new insight, and creating new directions to look into further.
We’re able to use it beyond concepting as well — we are also connecting with machine learning techniques to refine how we do cleanups in post-production. We're always investing time into trying to evolve and push into new spaces within post-production. Beyond efficiency, we’re always asking ourselves what we can achieve and create artistically.
Apart from AI, we are huge fans of new technologies and we are always looking for partners that can enhance the experience for our clients. For example, a Los Angeles-based company we have recently connected with works with a technology that offers the possibility to mimic the look, feel, and behavior of 35mm or 16mm analog film digitally.
What other capabilities set you apart as a boutique?
Joan: We cover everything from on-set supervising, editing, grading, online, VFX, and 2D animation in addition to the AI department mentioned before — we really are dedicated to best-in-class technology. Our grading suite operates using Baselight, which is our preferred tool and allows us to deliver really creative, high-quality work.
What are you looking forward to accomplishing as a part of the Twentyfour Seven group in the next few years?
Joan: We’re looking forward to touching base in the Spanish market but also expanding our work into other countries in the coming years — of course Twentyfour Seven has established offices internationally and we plan to expand in the same way. We are also aiming to move beyond commercials toward working on episodic and film projects in the future.
