Feature Story: Interview with Matt Wilson, Director & Founder of About Bob, Australia

About Bob is a full-service production company, we make content, moving images and still images for a variety of clients and within the business I’m a director and producer. We set up About Bob to enter the market in “the now” and be flexible, suiting todays variety of digital content demands. Our productions vary greatly in scale (TVC, Content, Doco, Service Productions) and we are adept at combining our individual skills for the benefit of each project. To maintain the highest possible production quality, we expand and contact when required and we are open to collaboration.

International recognition is fantastic for all involved, and the possibility of the award attracting another project is very important to us.

I wanted to enter Muse to showcase the work to a new audience, outside the property and 3D architecture market. Over the last 20 years I have been involved with many TVC projects involving VFX and this film is for a different market. It effectively combines elements of live action and CGI and I am very pleased with the outcome.

Considering the technical complexity of the film, with good communication and planning we smoothly overcame challenges as they arose. Good luck with the weather and understanding clients helped, but the biggest challenge - and anyone who’s familiar with high end CGI with understand this - was absorbing variations and changes into our post production timeline.

It is always and honour to receive recognition from industry peers. Over the years I have won many awards and they are a useful to start a conversation with new collaborators.

1: The satisfaction we get from successfully bringing a client’s vision to life.2: No matter where technology takes us we will remain emotional and sensual beings and our industry combines creativity and technology to communicate emotions on so many levels. There will always be stories to tell and I enjoy that part of the industry.3: It’s an exciting industry in a constant state of change.

Australia has incredible cultural diversity, geographical isolation, and a larrikin spirit, these all combine to create innovation. The size of our market has an impact on project budgets when compared to the USA and Europe, however, this also creates innovation through necessity. Our landscape is varied and our film craft world class. Working abroad so much, I can vouch that we’re a great destination for creativity.

In terms of evolution, we know content will be seen everywhere on a huge range of platforms. The democratic nature of on-line content creation, means anyone can participate. But this also creates a kind of white noise and I believe originality will become so much more important to cut through this increasing visual clutter. I also predict AI will influence forms of visual communication production, but initially for basic efficiency.

Get your inspiration anywhere you can, not just from an internet search! If a story has been told or an image made and it’s on-line, it’s already been done. Find and use your own stories, no matter how small they might seem, they’re unique to you and your world, exploit this point of reference, and be yourself and always try to clearly articulate your idea.

Learn some basic design principles because design can be applied to ways of thinking, film craft and organization, and use a note book!

I like cats.

Recently I have been inspired by Clint Eastwood, who at 88 years of age directed, produced and stared in 2018’s film The Mule.

Hard work, be curious, maintain personal evolution and growth.