Guided Tour

Learn how you can leverage Lens Distortions assets in your projects to create powerful cohesion.

Lens Distortions is hands down the most cohesive cinematic asset platform… and that’s not by accident. Every asset we offer was made by our creative team and executed with the utmost of intentionality.

In this guided tour of our platform, our Creative Director shares:

– How you can fully leverage the LD platform
– Assets you can’t find anywhere else
– One super simple audio tip that many filmmakers forget to make your content more cohesive

To create timeless films,
you need timeless music.

Watch our brand film in collaboration with Hugo Cheng.

Hugo Cheng’s work is visually stunning, but his films go beyond aesthetics. They resonate at a deeper level that is more emotionally satisfying and seem to transcend time.

Timeless human stories are the focus of everything we do at Lens Distortions and our album Decades is no exception. So we asked Hugo to pick a track from the album and create a brand film that pulls on that timeless thread in his work.

See how he used the track “Sleeping Giants” and read on to get a bit of his story.

Over the past few years, you seemed to have made the subtle shift from creating content to crafting emotionally nuanced films. What has that journey been like?

I have been in the creative industry for the past six years, taking it seriously since 2020. During this time, I’ve gained valuable experience through running a mini production company and working with some of the best clients from home. However, after 2.5 years of repetitive work, I felt a leap of faith and a change in path were necessary for personal growth and to further fulfill my true potential.

I would argue that the most significant growth aspect has been my well-being rather than the technical side of filmmaking. I’ve learned how to find inner peace, maintain a balanced mindset, manage my energy, and sustain myself, all of which have contributed to my longevity in the industry. This journey has profoundly impacted my creative process and helped me grow into a better person. And now I want to share these lessons I’ve learned with others.

What has this looked like practically?

Recently, I have made significant changes to my setup, primarily downsizing while maintaining the same high quality of production. It’s amazing what you can get done with a few Sony cameras and lenses, plus the latest iPhones for ProRes POV shots. This shift has made me more efficient and has helped me focus on what I truly need.

“Music and SFX are the most fundamental aspects of my creative process.”

Where do music and SFX come into your creative process?

Music and sound effects are perhaps the most fundamental aspects of my creative process. Without quality music, I wouldn’t be able to visualize my timeline, colors, or the overall aesthetic of my work. Recently, I’ve been using some high-quality tracks from Lens Distortions. These exceptional assets have been instrumental in helping me create enduring works of art.

Out of all your work, which films stand out as most timeless?

It’s challenging to pinpoint which pieces are the most timeless, as I strive to improve with each project. However, I would say my recent works, “DJI RS4: Lost” and “The Things I See When I Slow Down” with Polar Pro, lean heavily towards timelessness. This is due to the filming techniques and enduring style I have implemented in them. As the years go by, I continue to draw inspiration from these pieces.

You can see more of Hugo Cheng’s work on YouTube or @hugo.visuals on Instagram. Explore the album Decades below, featuring tracks like “Sleeping Giants” from our brand film.

Creating brand ethos for ASRV

How ASRV crafts cinematic worlds with our assets.

Scott Christie is a filmmaker for the apparel brand ASRV, telling deeply cinematic stories about people and products. In the age of short-form content, Scott crafts genuine narratives that make you feel something.

Whether he’s using our music as a centerpiece such as with “High Stakes” in the Jeremiah Maestre video above or building more subtle, textural soundscapes with our sound effects like with their Winter ’23 campaign below, Scott masterfully leverages the power of our cinematic assets.

In this conversation, we dive into Scott’s background with ASRV, his creative process, and his recent body of work.

“You want to make the viewer feel as connected as possible and really draw them into this world that you are creating.”

Can you share a bit about your journey in the creative industry and how you started working with ASRV?

Working with ASRV really came out of nowhere. I moved to San Diego and connected with one of the brand’s athletes and started doing some video work with him. Not too long after working with him, he asked if I wanted to shoot some videos for ASRV. One video leads to another, and then another and the snowball continues. I got connected with the brand directly and have been working with them ever since.

How do you approach the creative process when producing content for ASRV?

I usually go through a sound library or music bank and just listen for something that sounds right. It seems like a dead-end road at times but any editors out there know when you hear that right sound, that perfect note or melody in a song everything seems to click.

A majority of the time if I’m looking for something that I haven’t found the right one for yet, Lens Distortions has it. If I need something to add a little more “Umph” to the scene it’s always the place I go.

“The Spark” from the recent album Gravity was the perfect vibe for the launch of our new Aerosilver performance fabric.

Are there specific steps in your workflow or rituals you keep to get into a creative mindset?

Late nights for me are key. Feeling like I have absolutely no more responsibilities and the rest of the world is off allows me to dial in. I get some good music going at a low volume (no singing) in the background and get to it.

Your music and sound design choices are such a key part of ASRV’s content. How are you using audio to convey those deep feelings that resonate with the audience?

Audio paired with visuals is so important when trying to convey emotion. Sometimes it’s the heavy breathing of an athlete when they are going through a grueling workout or hearing them speak a mantra to themselves. You want to make the viewer feel as connected as possible and really draw them into this world that you are creating. The moment is always different, sometimes it’s a specific riser, sometimes it’s a little click noise you find, other times it’s a calm atmosphere that brings it all to a point.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by ASRV | Training Apparel (@asrv)

With the Winter ’23 campaign, what vibe were you going for? How did the assets you used tie it all together?

This was a campaign that was centered around the word “Focus”. We have this character who is a quiet guy in this loud and chaotic city. He has all these loud environments and things pulling his attention left and right but every time we are with the character all the sounds seem to have drifted away. We wanted to convey someone who is consistently pushing themselves to be better whether it’s early in the morning, late at night after everyone has finished their day, or when nobody else is around.

The assets I used from LD allowed me to really take the viewer into this chaotic city and feel like they are surrounded by all this chaos and then when we go to the talent we are with him in his moments of solitude. Adding just enough to every scene helped me build the world that surrounded our character.

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A post shared by ASRV | Training Apparel (@asrv)

In your opinion, what are the best ways to make the content stand out?

It is insane to see the way the content creation landscape has changed since I started. We used to just put some videos on a song and cut it to the beat and call it a day but now you have some really incredible sound design elements that bring a video to life instantly. The audio experience is more important (to me) than the visual experience. The visuals can be decent but the right audio elements can completely make or break something.

“I know I can rely on the sounds to be unique and the music to be great.”

LD raises production value for sure. If I’m ever in a crunch and need some of the right sounds or tracks it’s always my go-to because I know I can rely on the sounds to be unique, the music to be great… and they will really help my videos stand out. Being able to have a go-to, reliable source for these elements that is always evolving is pivotal.

You can see more of Scott Christie’s work for ASRV on their YouTube channel or on Instagram at @scott.christie.

Building immersive worlds for MVMT.

How Totale brings a watch brand to life.

From ocean plastic to clean, modern design, MVMT Watches leans on powerful visual storytelling to help them stand out in a world of noise. Enter Corey Milne of Totale.

Corey Milne is a VFX Producer at Totale and is based in Los Angeles, CA. His portfolio includes many high-end commercial spots for MVMT Watches that bring their products to life. Before we share our conversation with Corey on one specific project he completed for MVMT Watches, we wanted to give you a glimpse into how he’s incorporated Lens Distortions into his workflow.

From the music to the VFX library, LensDistortions.com is a staple, and sometimes even the starting point in Corey’s process. Take a look at Totale’s portfolio of MVMT commercials and read more from our conversation with Corey Milne about one project specifically.

“Project Dive” spotlights MVMT’s automatic watch with glowing features against a dark backdrop that utilizes a quiet character and VFX. Read more from our conversation with Corey Milne of Totale about this specific MVMT Watches commercial.

“We knew we wanted to draw parallels between this natural phenomenon and the glowing feature of the automatic watch.”

This project had such a unique visual concept, with the juxtaposition between the colorful, organic jellyfish and the monochromatic, physical dive watch. Where did the inspiration for this concept originate?

This past year, we had the most beautiful and vivid bioluminescence to date. We knew we wanted to draw parallels between this natural phenomenon and the glowing feature of the automatic watch. In addition, the embroidered Jellyfish emblem on the back of the watch was the perfect spirit animal. A glowing watch.. among glowing jellyfish.

Were there camera moves you had in mind?

To add more production value, we ensured every camera move was multinodal. We avoided static tilts and pans and focused more on dolly’s, trucks, and orbital rotations. These bigger camera moves highlighted the 3-dimensions better, and allowed us to explore more of the environment and the details of the watch.

Did you plan all the shots in advance or did you start with some specific ideas and iterate/experiment from there? What did your planning look like?

When assembling our edit, we had to work very efficiently. Our first step was to work in a very low-res 480p state to get renders out quickly for editorial assembly. This allowed our artists to generate working animations faster so that our editors could begin assembling. Like any creative process, we have to move things around and talk it out. Some things hit the cutting-room floor.

Each shot in the project flows really nicely into the next. Did you build your shots around the physics of the watch?

We knew going into the project that we needed to highlight key features of the dive watch. Using “Macros”, or in film terms “ECUs”, we were able to get the 3D camera into tight places that could never be achieved practically. There was a lot of shot juggling in our early timelines. We eventually came back to the final glow as our finale shot, which we knew was the highlight feature of the MVMT watch.

Were you trying to achieve specific qualities with the lights and reflections?

We let the dark environment set the tone for the piece, it was the very simple key lights that would come and go into frame revealing the features. We would slowly reveal more and more of the watch as each shot progressed, before finally revealing the watch as a whole, and then the glow feature as the finale.

Achieving photo-realistic renders is challenging, especially when you are trying to present very specific objects like a time piece (vs abstract objects that don’t correlate to a specific object). Were there any tools, effects, or techniques you used to make the visuals more immersive?

While there is a sense of abstraction and subjectivity with our work, we must build the products as accurate as humanly possible. Every screw and curve has to be built to scale. Every surface has to reflect reality. Our modeling team did an incredible job. Using Lightwave 3D and working closely with the key creatives at MVMT, we finished modeling in a few weeks.  Our workflow was a combination of 3D renders (watch) mixed with 2D compositing (jellyfish and ocean particles) and then additionally adding 2D element overlays from Lens Distortion in editorial (flares and light leaks).

This project feels very cinematic and cuts together like a movie trailer… what elements helped you achieve that feeling?

The music. Period. It was as if it was scored just for us. We first heard the Lens Distortions track “GO FASTER” and knew it was the one. It had an underlying ticking sound of the watch with this beautiful building tempo and intensity. It even had this subtle echo which made the environment feel vast, which helped expand our 3D ocean immensely. We used each major beat as our editorial cue, and the song had this beautiful arc that ended with the logo. It was not only perfect… it was our template for the spot.

Creating fully CG ad campaigns such as this are incredibly complex and time-consuming… when there are 1,000 ways to do something, it’s easy to get off-course. Were there any things that helped you stay on course with your vision?

Aesthetically, our major universal motif for every shot was to mirror the movement of  jellyfish:

• slow down the movement of the camera
• slow down the movement of the watch.

With these creative guidelines, we were able to create our world for MVMT.

“Lens Distortions is my first and last stop for high-quality FX and music. Their library has a custom ‘score-like’ quality that only studio films get. This raises the bar for our ad-spots!”

You can see more of Corey Milne and Totale’s work on their website.