A movie that sounds so good, you don't need to see it

To launch their new range of invisible sprays, Old Spice produced the world’s first invisible movie. “Wait!” you say. “An invisible movie?” Yup, an honest to god, action packed, feature length, 2 hour long movie with NO visuals. It’s titled Invisible World. Who in their right mind would concoct such a ground-breaking idea? None other than iconic Portland-based agency Wieden + Kennedy. 

If this leaves you scratching your head (as it should), take a minute or two to watch this case study on the project:  

Better yet, watch the entire movie:

In case you have a day job (that you don’t want to get fired from) or you can’t dedicate two hours to Invisible World, we’ve asked sound designer and project lead, Reed Harvey, to share his favorite, must-hear parts of the film for you. But first, we had him recount a little bit about the process...    

“We had only two weeks from recording to delivery of the final product… it was a great challenge to take Christen Brestrup and Bertie Scrase’s vision and make it reality under such extreme time constraints,” recalls Reed. From recording the six A-list Hollywood actors, to editing dialogue and music, through to sound design and mixing of the feature took an “all-hands-on-deck” approach. During the production, the agency embedded themselves at the facility (only going home to sleep) while all four Dig1 suites were cranking away. 

Studio owner (and dialog recordist on the project) Eric Stolberg says “I love how well it worked having this team of engineers and producers humming away. We often had four engineers working on the same project files simultaneously, and that’s no easy task. But that’s what we built this facility to do and it worked swimmingly.” Eric also notes that “This was Reed’s first time being the lead on a project of this scope and he killed it. The whole staff followed Reed’s lead, took his direction and set him up to carry this one over the finish line in style.” 

Reed describes it as a “creatively-freeing” project, taking inspiration from classic Sci-Fi movies, a little Kung Fu and a lot of improv from the actors recording session, adding that at first “It was intimidating, but it was faster… and it ended up being more fun because I didn’t have to worry about the visuals. It was about telling the story with audio. I could imagine what the audience would be seeing in their mind’s eye and try to get them there with just the sound.”  

Reed adds, “My favorite moment is when the character of Duval transforms from his fake human appearance... and sings a song about it. He sings this sad song about how he always wanted to be a human and then in the middle of it, he’s changing tunes to his celebratory music. Originally we were going to have him snapping his fingers or clap or something like that, but instead, we have it so his big tentacles are clapping to count off the tempo change. That whole part just gets me!” 

Hopefully, this intrigues you to “watch” the film. In case you’re crunched for time, here is the list of Reed’s favorite parts from Invisible World. 

Highlights 

02:24 

This is supposed to be an intergalactic mirror that can see across space 

12:15

The gang decides to wait out the alien apocalypse in Michael's basement, all to the surf rock song "Fun in the Sun" 

13:30

This scene started the requirement that we use the same ominous sound effect every time someone says "Alien Gateway" in the film 

42:48

This is my cameo in the film. I'm the annoyed fancy woman reacting to Derek

01:03:14

Going into light speed just sounds really cool 

01:16:46

The effects on Cyborg Mel's voice turned out really well 

01:26:48

The transition between these two songs is my favorite part of the whole film 

01:37:02

Echoes are fun 

01:43:05

I have no idea how the actor did this, but it is one long, unedited take 

01:51:36

The creative team wanted it sound like Duvall was getting sucked into the game and squashed down into 8 bits. I think we hit the mark 

Awards (So Far!) Radio Mercury Awards

2018 Winner - Most Innovative Use of Audio

2018 Finalist - Integrated Campaign with Audio  

The Webby Awards

2018 Honoree - Best Branded Podcast or Segment 

The One Show 2018

Finalist - Innovation in Film - Online 

CREDITS

Client: Old Spice

Marketing Director: Janine Miletic

Assistant Brand Manager: Eugenia Chacon

Agency: Wieden + Kennedy, Portland, Ore.

Creative Directors: Ashley Davis-Marshall | Matt SorrellCopywriter: Bertie Scrase

Art Director: Christen Brestrup

Producer: Evelyn Loomis

Integrated Production Director : Endy Hedman

Account Team: Ghada Soufan | Katie Schaller |Phil Williams

Media/Comms Planning: Melissa Meier | AJ Blumenthal | Kimberly Van | Cherish Lee | Graham Wallace

Business Affairs Manager : Kevin Moyer | Dusty Slowik

Strategic Planning : Drew Phillips | Gian Colombo | Andrew Clayton

Studio: Patrick Cahalan | Ken Berg

Audio Production

Production Company: Digital One

Audio Post Producer: Laura Ocean

Client Services: Chelsea Smith

Sound Designer: Reed Harvey, Chip Sloan, Josh Millman, Eric Stolberg

Re-Recording Mixer: Reed Harvey

Dialogue Recordist: Eric Stolberg

Animation

Production Company: Brewster Parsons

Senior Executive Producer: Sue Troyan

Executive Creative Director: Tim Davies2D Lead: Tim Davies

CG Lead : Mike Dalzell

Content Services

Production Manager: Zoe Hoeltzel

Productionist: Jeredon O’Connor

Credits Outro Music

Vocal Arrangement: Walker

Executive Producer: Sara Matarazzo

Vocal Producer: Jacob Piontek

Vocalist: Matt Wilcox

Toy Production

Head of Print Production: Stacie Balzer

Fabrication Artist: Kevin Shaw