»Most of all we need a shift in how we look at the world«

Boris Johnson drowning in plastic waste or people covered in crude oil. Sulfur miners floating over the steaming landscape of Indonesia where they do their deadly job – or a giant whale crossing the ocean that turns out to be built of trash: with cinematic power, an exceptional trained eye and with visual effects that are state of the art, Studio Birthplace tells of climate change and environmental destruction, animal cruelty and so­ cial injustice – and calls for action. We talked to the foun­ ders and creative directors, Sil van der Woerd und Jorik Dozy, about the beauty of the world, the responsibility of the creative industry to initiate change, about the po­ wer of images – and hope.

Sil, you’re living in the Netherlands and you, Jorik, in Bali. That’s quite far away from each other. How are you making this work?

Jorik Dozy: Our journey is pretty strange anyway. We are both Dutch but met in Los Angeles studying at the Gnomon school of visual effects and then ended up starting a company together while living on opposite sides of the world. But we make it work. We feel like brothers – there’s absolutely zero ego involved, and our communication is extremely fluent. It doesn’t matter where we are in the world.

What brought you to Bali, Jorik?

Jorik: As Sil was working as an independent director for music videos, short films and commercials, I was building a career in special effects working on big Hollywood productions for Industrial Light & Magic, first in San Francisco and then in Singapore. That was very exciting, ILM is famous for going into extreme detail, every pixel has to be perfect, und you get a really trained eye. At the same time, I started collaborating with Sil on our own projects, and the urge to break out of the corporate system grew stronger and stronger. When Wasteminster – the spot we did for Greenpeace in 2021 – went viral, I felt it was time to let go of my visual effects career.

»High-end film production, creative concepts and visual effects are our way to fight the big companies and polluters«

Jorik

But you stayed in Southeast Asia?

Jorik: I moved to Bali because the region has become home after 21 years. But another reason was that many of the issues that concern us in our work are very present here, the climate crisis is very noticeable, and there are many stories about poverty, the destruction of rainforests for the harvesting of palm oil.

Was there a particular trigger for you to focus on sustainable and social issues?

Sil van der Woerd: Already as a child, I felt so powerless seeing poverty, nature being destroyed or animals in harmful situations and wondered how to respond. But when I did a film for the Marine conservation organization Sea Shepherd against whaling in 2019, I realized that film is a platform where I can express a message that I really care about. We founded Studio Birthplace, because it’s much less of a lonely journey to direct together with a friend.

What does a film have to have to make people think and change their behavior?

Jorik: High-end film production, creative concepts and visual effects are our way to fight the big companies and polluters. With their huge budgets, they have all the tools available, and we want to compete. That’s why we’re using the same tricks as the entertainment or advertising industry. Through emotion, humor and really overwhelming visuals, we want to bring important topics to the people, which they might otherwise have just scrolled past or never even thought about.

Sil: Especially when we work for non-governmental organizations that have very little budgets and often use a different kind of visuals. But despite the visual effects and entertainment, we always make sure that there are real stories in our films. Because the problems und issues we’re talking about are happening in the real world.

Besides that, you work with optical illusions to talk about greenwashing, you let plastic rain and dip people in petrol to show what it means to wear synthetic fabrics. How do you come up with pictures like this?

Jorik: Some of our films are data visualizations. With every data fact we brainstorm how we can bring to life the information in the most fertile way that makes you want to learn about this topic.

Sil: But at the heart of it, it’s always the story and the idea we get excited about. How we execute it is kind of secondary. This year we even organized an art exhibition for the first time, and we’re building games and apps. But our focus is on film. On the one side, we’re passionate about filming real people and stories in a beautiful cinematic way, on the other, our background in visual effects drives us to new visuals. We get the most excited when both overlap.

Could you give an example?

Sil: Terraform, a music video about the sulfur miners in Indonesia, is a good example. We followed a miner on his work into the volcano, but at the same time visualized his emotional inner landscape by making him float over the sulfur mine with his beloved family.

What also really impressed me is the amazing video Birthplace you call “A Statement On Plastic Pollution In Our Oceans”.

Sil: A number of films about plastic pollution came out around 2018, but we felt, that they were either quite dry or showed shocking images, which tends to turn people off. We wanted to respond more creatively, wanted to touch people’s hearts and tell this story in a very cinematic and empowering way. In the film we follow a man underwater in the ocean, who explores all of its creatures and beauty, to make the viewer fall in love with the ocean. But then we show that there’s another side to the story and introduce the topic of plastic waste, to break the viewer’s heart. What first looks like a jellyfish, turns out to be a plastic bag. Finally, a giant, life-size whale appears, made entirely out of plastic waste. The whale was 13 meters long and we spent two weeks building it with a local community in Indonesia.

And as I understand it, it was also quite important to you that it was a community project.

Jorik: Yes, that’s important to us, because it’s part of our ethos. We work a lot in remote places where life can be quite challenging, and we don’t want to just say thank you for sharing your story. Instead we want to make sure, that the people there are better off when we leave. That’s why we try to follow up. For the sul­ fur miners, we raised 20 000 dollars. With that money, they could send 100 children to school, and we’re still in touch with them. The same goes for a community we re­ cently met for a film about bird poaching, we also try to figure out how we can improve their situation. We learn so much from the local communities, how they live, how they think about life and about the challenges they face. That’s one of the great joys of the work we do.

I was surprised that Birthplace and also other of your vehemently environmental and social stories are music videos for artists like Flags or Novo Amor.

Jorik: Our first projects together were music videos and we’re lucky that we can tell stories through music. Music is emotion and if you pair that with a visual you have an instant feeling. That is a really powerful thing. Recently we also did a campaign against bird poaching with the pianist/composer Ludovico Einaudi. His mu­ sic has an elegance and beauty that elevated our story to a whole different level.

Sil: Besides, musicians often have a big following. Simi­ lar to Greenpeace or The Woolmark Company, it helps to bring a story to an already existing community in this way, because these stories really need to be seen.

Do you think that the creative industry with its ability to change people’s minds has a special responsibility to talk about these topics?

Sil: It has a massive responsibility. Especially the adver­ tising industry, because they make people buy a lot of stuff that is not good for our planet. But I also believe that today everyone has a responsibility, no matter what industry you’re in. At the beginning we wanted to create awareness through our work. But now, it’s much more important for us to turn that awareness into change.

»We learn so much from the local communities, how they do things, how they think about life and about whattheyface«

Jorik

Your work must be very fulfilling.

Sil: It’s fulfilling and draining at the same time. The Greenpeace spot Wasteminster actually helped to get a law changed. But most of the success is hard to mea­ sure. And dealing with these topics, we see so much of what is wrong in the world and often that feels like you can never win.

Jorik: But more than anything we think that we need a shift in our culture, a shift in how we look at the world and at ourselves as part of the ecosystem. And the crea­ tive and the entertainment industries are playing a mas­ sive role in leading this revolution to change our mind­ set. Because we need to start revolutionizing the stories we are telling and we need heroes in ads, in commercials, in movies, who stand up for our world. We need to change what it means to be successful. That it’s not about having a lot of money and a lot of things, but about being a good community leader, being there for the people around you and taking care of your environment.

So, there’s still hope.

Jorik: We’re trying not to lose it.
In Mongolia, you were shooting at minus 35 degrees Celsius, in Indonesia you spent more than 35 hours underwater, and you say you thrive on challenges like that.

Jorik: We don’t shy away from challenges, because be­ ing in these extreme conditions, we understand what the people who live there are facing. That wakes us up and fuels our motivation to help these people to tell their sto­ ries, for everyone who will never have the chance to go there. But sometimes you walk a thin line. Just a month after we did a film in Nigeria about one of the only suc­ cessful female conservationists there, one of her rangers had been killed by a criminal organization that is trying to occupy the rainforest for the production of drugs.

With all the destruction you see, do you also perceive the beauty of the world more intensely?

Sil: Besides all the things that are wrong, you still find so much beauty, positivity and love. When we went to do the film about the bird poachers, we had so many preju­ dices. But then we saw how much in harmony this com­ munity lives with nature and how they look after each other. There are always so many different sides. Making the Flags music video about Sapna, a little girl in India, who suffered from blood cancer and died a few months later, was heartbreaking. We stopped caring about views or success of the film and we were just so grateful that we were able to capture her story.

With all the sad things we see it’s still empowering because at least we’re trying to do something about it.

Jorik: That’s an interesting question you’ve asked. Be­ cause I think there’s definitely been a shift in us in re­ cent years in terms of how we value life. And we’ve also learned that everyone has a talent for something that they can use to influence things around them in a posi­tive way. And that is exactly what we want to achieve with our work.