Agency: Ferdinando Verderi Studio          Campaign Creative Director & Video Director: Ferdinando Verderi

Pedestrians in Tokyo’s high-end commercial area known as Shibuya were mesmerized late last year by a Louis Vuitton teaser campaign – a whimsical presentation integrating 13 prominent digital billboards of various shapes and sizes. The overarching effect was of a model seaming to leap from screen to screen and interacting with the flying dots and spheres integral to the work of legendary Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama as well as a giant CGI head of the iconic nonagenarian whose work is tied to a major line of Louis Vuitton bags, scarves and other accessories.  Method Studios handled all compositing and other finishing work on this giant installation in addition to literally hundreds of pieces of content related to the campaign, including a short YouTube film, TikTok videos and every piece of content for this striking advertising campaign.  

The push for these Kusama-related items started with LVMH’s in-house agency and director Ferdinando -- whose eponymous studio handled all the live-action work with the models.  Method Studios received the elements in late October/early November of 2022. These included all the live action shots of the models for Method’s compositors, led by Flame Artist Margolit Steiner, to isolate the models from the backgrounds they were shot against, finetune the timing of the movement of the models as they seem to leap from screen to screen and composite them into the world of the Kusama collection – the floating dots and spheres, delivered by the company Motion Principles and the giant CG Kusama head, which was built by Closer. The head was initially manipulated and isolated by Method Nuke, to accommodate its 3D movement, and then everything was brought together in Flame. Method also built the logo animation that starts the pieces. 

Colorist Jamie O’Bradovich of sister company Company 3 also served as colorist for the work. 

“I think we were chosen because of the enormous volume of work and short turnaround,” says Aiste Akelaityte, Senior Producer, Commercials Post Production at Method, noting that while the majority of work was handled by New York-based artists, Method was able to quickly scale up to include the LA-based team that shares the company’s pipeline. 

The Shibuya installation kicked off on schedule at the start of December 2022 was designed to be a teaser to get people talking before the official launch of the campaign. “And it really worked!” Akelaityte says. “Almost as soon as it went live, it was all over Instagram and online media everywhere!”