Mill 3D Lead Marta Carbonell Amela discusses the recent Cannes Lions win for Samsung ‘The Spider & The Window’

It was definitely challenging but really exciting, it was integral to approach this project in a very collaborative way, keeping fluent communication with the directors and client. With such a quick turnaround, I wanted to make sure our character would possess the quality and creativity that it deserved, giving priority to the design of the spider and planning the shoot with directors, first AD and DOP to make the best of our time and avoid future trouble.

In order to achieve and drive everyone into such a emotional view and cinematographic look, we used filming tools such as lenses, camera moves and angles, researching the best photography alongside a detailed composition of multiple layers, playing with depth, scale and FXs to create this breathable, atmospheric and personal habitat in a macro-world were our little friend lives. Approaching the whole process with a small but very organised team was the key.

Part of the challenge was to craft a photo-realistic and loveable spider – a creature that is most commonly feared. There is a rollercoaster of emotions that happens throughout this edit. The language that we used here to convey this, had to come from the animation as no dialogue was used. A lot of attention also went into the spiders’ eyes, with a lot of time spent researching how eyes express emotion and how we would integrate this into our film.

I’d like to think that we managed to break through the common animosity towards this creature by creating one that is absolutely adorable!

Very happy indeed! It’s always rewarding to get your work recognised by awards, especially a Gold Lion. It was such a creative journey and enjoyable process with everyone involved. I do feel very proud of my team, they did an amazing job, as I said before was a very collaborative project and would have never happened without all the support.