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19/04/05 / Res Magazine Vol. 8 No. 2 (USA)

res magazine | march/april 2005

Next Big Things : The 2005 RES 10
DIGITAL HABITAT / coming up / new talent

“We Want to Make You Simpler” is the business slogan chosen by directing collective Lyall Coburn, David Correia and Marc Ziman, who jointly established Conduit in 2002. Conduit wins its bread creating idents and commercials for South African clients seeking to garb faceless corporate images in the pleasingly modern veneer of slick motion graphics, which provides the Cape Town trio the tools and the cash required to finance more poignant personal film projects.

All three partners traveled extensively before setting up shop in Cape Town and pooling their photographic, interactive, industrial and graphic design know-how to tap into the growing demand from various South African cable and satellite broadcasters for high-end show and station packaging. “After a month or two, we created a show reel of spec motion graphic work that began attracting work for us,” says Coburn. For Ziman, a former product designer who became disillusioned, Conduit was an outlet for his growing frustration: “Blatant consumerism is fueled by redundant technologies, and I wanted no part [of that] machine.”

One way Conduit avoids being conventional and static is in its collaborative approach to directing. This work ethic ensures constant eyes all production concerns, from the actor’s performances, to the visual compositions. Photographic worlds augmented with composited digital footage, graphics and images are de rigeur for Conduit, whose members cite narratives from David Lynch films, innovative architecture and especially nature and travel as inspirations. “I suppose illustrations and the fantastical ability to create an emotion in unreal characters are my strongest influence,” says Correia.

Initially operating with extremely low overhead, Conduit has emerged as one of South Africa’s go-to directors, with slick ad campaigns for Coca-Cola, BMW and Cell C supplementing work on innovative show and channel imaging. Coburn describes a recent creatively satisfying shoot for SABC1: “We shot hi-res digital stills of actors, moving the camera while shooting them, creating live action with a stop-motion feel with these sequential stills. We put it together in Final Cut and After Effects and added graphics and illustrations.” He adds, “We are animating composited environments, not abstract shapes. I love creating environments graphically, and there is convergence of live action and graphics going on.”

In Conduit’s personal work, such convergence truly thrives. Two examples are Introspect, a mostly live action short that parallels a stark, modern industrial cityscape with the inner fears and compulsions of its protagonist, a guy on a bike; and more recently I Give You My Love, a short film that combines landscapes and human images captured in photos treated with contoured graphics and illustrations. Ghostly representations of youthful faces merge with a flowing fusion of icons, text and line art before a final cherubic bull’s eye softens the piece’s bleak overtones. “It was really a personal expression about the reality of love in an abstract land. It was a simple message I needed to portray, creating a moment of turmoil in another existence that someone in this existence could relate to on a personal level,” says Correia. I Give You My Love toured the world with RESFEST 2004, while Introspect screened in the RESFEST South Africa program.