Sila Sveta

I’m the creative director of Sila Sveta and have been working here already for more than ten years. And actually, it is my first job. I have never worked anywhere else before. I'm lying a bit, because I worked for a couple of months in a small CGI studio. But I don't count it because it was a short experience. So, yeah, Sila Sveta is my first place of work, and I grew up there, from junior artist to the creative director through this decade.

Yeah, I'm asking myself that a lot, trying to find out what was the reason, what was the starting point of my interest in making graphics and shows. And I think maybe it comes from a friend from my childhood. He would take a popular song very well known by everybody and create his own music video with his small camera. He was older than me, and I would be watching these videos like, “Oh my god, it's so cool. I want to take part in it.” Some years later, I started to use Photoshop for my personal interest, and step by step, I started to learn and dive deeper into graphics. At some point, I thought it would be nice to create a kind of animation. I remember that when I opened it the first time, I was very confused and scared by the interface because it seemed too complex to understand. I closed it immediately, but I tried one more time. Soon enough, I realised that I can create something by myself, not just by watching tutorials, but I started to understand how to create the graphics, animations, and images by myself without any references. After that, I realised that it could be my work because I was interested in it.

At the time when I started, I didn't have such huge plans for the future. It was just nice to start to work making animations and motion graphics. I was happy about that because I liked it a lot, and I still like it for sure. When I started, I was around twenty-two years old, and when I came to the studio, I was the youngest person in the studio. The evolution was step by step. I couldn't say that I had a strategy. It was a very organic process.

It’s a unique studio with the ability to create something between the arts and technologies. We are doing most of our projects on the edge of these two spheres. It's very important to not just make a beautiful picture but try to make it more impressive by using technical instruments.

For me, creative processes start with an idea of the form, of the setup. And the next step is how to make it more valuable with the graphics and with the show being the standout of the whole project. You will always have limitations in a project, whether that’s budget or personal taste of an artist. So, for me, it’s important to factor that into the creative process and make something unique in the conditions that you have.

It's definitely strange and difficult. Especially when we're working with somebody who is from one of these spheres, for example, from the art world, and they don't understand how the technology works. You do need to have a lot of experience and expertise to understand how it will work, what you can achieve, and what you can do with the kinds of instruments that exist nowadays.

It was different from the very first step because I was the initiator of our collaboration. I'm a huge fan of Robert and what he's doing. You know I was amazed with his raincoat—I think that half the world was amazed with that raincoat. I dreamed for maybe a year or more that we could work with him someday, even if it was to create something small. It just so happened that we have common friends, and with their help, we connected with each other a year ago when I moved to New York. I represented the studio, and I told his assistant that we really wanted to make something special with Robert. They were busy at the time, but after the spring/summer collection, they came back to me and said that they wanted to try to make something with us for the upcoming collection.

He sent us the first version of the sketches with a reference picture of something that inspired him. When they started to tailor the collection, they provided us with photos of the fabrics and the colours and textures. The collection wasn’t yet ready, but you could understand, for example, how colour would work. It was very important to match the colours between the dress and the graphics on the projection screen. But you couldn't predict the colour on the projection until you were at the venue, which was until the day of the show. The projection itself also depends on a lot of technical things you can’t predict, like the type of light in the space, because if the light is too bright, it will affect the colour and projection quality. It was stressful, especially in the tight time frame that we had at the venue.

I wouldn't say that it was decided by me because it was a collaboration with Robert. You know our job is to create a wider version of his vision. For example, when we show the leaves, it is the segment for that time and for the seasons. The first looks were linked to winter and snow blizzards, so we wanted to recreate snow, but not these separate, single snowflakes.

I wanted to transport them from summer in Paris to winter, from day to night. I thought that it would be nice to place the audience in a different reality, in something imaginary. I do think that we did pretty good, but one thing that was missed was not being able to truly feel the season of winter. The venue didn’t have air conditioning; it was so hot inside, so it's hard to believe that you are in winter when you can’t breathe.

Personally, the easiest answer, and the simplest answer, is we do what we do because we like to see the emotions from the viewers. The response from audiences is always ‘Wow’, and it's always unexpected, you know?

Not all of those projects were made by me, because we have different people in the studio, but I would say that my most favourite is the opening ceremony for the 2023 AFC Asian Cup that we made in Qatar as well. The Asian Cup was quite unique for me because one half was responsible for the narrative—the story, costumes, choreography, and so on. And Sila Sveta were responsible for the stage design and half of the creative elements for the show, such as screen graphics. So, we were responsible for the visual representation of the narrative as well as the small wristband devices the audience wears. And when you can see 80,000 people in the stadium shining with these devices synchronised with the music and changing its colours,... it's always amazing. It gives you a feeling of unity with all of the stadium, and probably it was one of our biggest projects so far. And as well, from the visual perspective, another of my favourites is The Weeknd After Hours Til Dawn Tour. We created only the visuals for the screen, but the screen was giant. A huge shout out from me and Sila Sveta to Es Devlin because she created the stage for that tour. It was beautiful with this kind of abundant and ruined cityscape. And in my opinion, the tour stage is one of the hardest things to do because the concerts happen every couple of days. And the stage has to be mobile to travel with it all over the world.

I would say that it's interesting because the experience from one sphere could be useful in another sphere. For example, doing tour shows could be useful in the fashion shows and vice versa. I would say that we have a lot of interests. That's why we're doing so many different types of projects, but we always succeed in them. In my opinion, we are one of the best in that.

My dream is to make the Super Bowl halftime show, but not only visuals. I would love to do the whole show with the stage, the creative concept, the direction, visuals, and light.

I can’t really say because I have an NDA, but when the second half of the year is done, I think everybody will be amazed.