“Play God”, goes Electric Art’s concise motto. It’s one that aptly surmises the approach of this Sydney-based digital production studio.

Electric Art conjures vibrant digital worlds from ones and zeroes, transforming code into placid lakeside environments for MillerCoors; kidney-shaped sky-high super highways for Link9 NY; or intricate mine-like structures carved deep into reams of CG paper for the Australasian Writers and Art Directors Association (AWARD) Awards.

Beyond that, the studio develop in-house tests featuring intricately interacting particle structures or Snapchat lenses that transform users into cosmos-bound astronauts. Across the creative arts – from CGI to animation, retouching, concept design and photography – Electric Art spends its time weaving pure imagination into worlds of silicon. They’re digital gods, and the computer is their playground.

However, this creativity doesn’t come from just one mind. It’s shared. The prolific thinkers at Electric Art collaborate with others located across oceans and continents. Frankie is the connective tissue that allows these brains to connect and produce work that dazzles.

Electric Art Showreel 2016 from Electric Art on Vimeo.

Shared creativity

“Around 50% of our projects at any given time are for offshore clients,” begins Electric Art producer Sara Kennedy. “We’re repped by Sharpe & Associates in the US and work with ad agencies all over the States. We also work regularly with ad agencies out of Asia. It’s a global production effort.”

Electric Art also works with some of the biggest corporations, ad agencies and photographers around the world, with a vast portfolio that features BMW, Sony, Yahoo and many more iconic global brand names.

The studio knows that remote collaboration is part and parcel of working with such familiar brands. To bridge the gap between minds, the team at Electric Art jumps on Frankie sessions whenever discussing motion remotely, ensuring artists and clients always operate under the same, shared creative concept.

“Frankie is perfect for client and agency meetings where we need to ensure we’re all looking at the same animation frame or key visual at the same time,” says Kennedy. “We can view the project together in real time with Frankie, making notes and amends with the whole team involved. It’s a necessary approach in today’s global creative environment.”

Clear, concise communication

Electric Art has used Frankie on two TVCs for overseas clients over the last three months, one of which was for a client out of Indonesia: a complicated CG animation with multiple approval layers to be carried out with the agency’s executive producer.

“The ability to simultaneously review projects with the client in a location like Indonesia, and all in real time, is a real game changer for Electric Art,” says Kennedy. “Frankie keeps the communication between the agency creatives and producers clear and concise – we’re all on the same page, so to speak.”

And they remain there – Frankie exports all revisions and comments made during a session to a PDF, giving all involved a record of what was agreed upon. The shared creative idea remains intact across vast geographical distances, even after the session has ended.

“Our reviews are stored and shared online under individual projects, meaning there is no hunting around looking for the last review shared,” says Kennedy. “The exported PDF and markups can also form the basis for a contact report.”

Playing God

Frankie has proven invaluable to the Electric Art collective, reducing disparity in interpretation to zero. Creative projects are approached as shared concepts, not individual ideas haphazardly stitched together. Electric Art works as one almighty, omnipresent force.

“Frankie keeps the lines of communication seamless, it’s straightforward and intuitive to use, and essentially it saves valuable production time,” says Kennedy.

Simply put, it means Electric Art gets to play God.