“Le Sens Propre” is a beautiful short film written and directed by Blacklist’s Cisma for Adobe’s Shortcut to brilliant campaign for CS4 (Creative Suite 4).

Goodby, Silverstein & Partners came to Cisma with a 98% open brief and the only requirement was to do everything using Adobe products exclusively.

Q&A with Cisma

What was the brief on this project? Was it wide open, in terms of script/concept?

Basically it was a 98% open brief and the only requirement was to do everything using Adobe products exclusively.

If you wrote the script, where did you get the idea?

Since Adobe products are more about filmmaking and didn’t really need me to communicate a specific message, I took that as an opportunity to make an experimental film focused on art direction and creativity.

My goal was to hold the attention of the viewer by the way the story is told and not the desire of knowing how it’s going to end. I also tried to make the visual language the most important aspect of the film.

Like “The Fly and the Eye” and “Handmade,” “Le Sens Propre” is based in live action. You mix graphics, visual effects and in-camera tricks to create a surreal world that seems to be as much about the act of perception as it is about the film’s subject.

Exactly, I think differently from animation, films based in live action are way too close to reality, it’s an immersive experience, our eyes believe on what we are seeing as it is happening in front of us.

But because of that I think that there’s too little space for personal interpretation, some films in live action are just hypnotic and don’t really make you think.

Tell me about how your approached making “Le Sens Propre”?

Given the creative freedom of this project, I first started to create strange scenes and weird connections between elements of the story in the universe of a little girl.

Do you have a favorite part or moment in the film? If yes, what is it and why?

My favorite part is the donut sock scene, I remember when I was a child taking out my socks like that.

What was the most challenging aspect of the project?

The most technical challenge was to not use any 3D software in a visual effects film.

But at same time, because we have this limitation we have an even more organic and real result because many of the effects were made in-camera or using a lot of shooting plates.