Microsoft 20-22

​​What if you could make the most famous brand in the world more famous?

I have been working with Microsoft for the last three years and have faced exciting challenges, especially when launching products in the middle of a lockdown.

Resurface is a fantastic project where we helped street artists recreate themselves in the middle of the lockdown; it was the first project I had directed 100% remotely, and it was definitely a huge challenge.

Another project I produced in lockdown helped Microsoft launch their first duo screen phone onto the market, creating a web series where the main character was the Microsoft duo.

My third project for Microsoft involved production, which I will share here in the next few weeks.

In The Balance

Microsoft Surface presents, In The Balance, a new WFH Comedy thriller starring Lily Frazer, Alexandra Moen, Amit Shah and Seb Cardinal.  Brought to life by award-winning Director Marley Morrison and written by Jess Bray and Daisy Allsop.

The Microsoft Surface Duo defines an entirely new category: it’s the first handheld dual-screen device to enable true multitasking features. It’s not a smartphone or a tablet, the Duo is the world’s first productivity device.

Years in the making, the Duo was destined to be the ultimate device for productivity on the go, but before we were able to introduce it to the world, the world changed. Drastically. So, we asked ourselves, is the Duo still fit for purpose? What does productivity mean in a world that works from home? 

The answer was all around us: When roles and responsibilities from all aspects of our lives overlap and compete for our attention, productivity is no longer about ‘getting stuff done’ in the fastest most efficient way – productivity is what helps us find a balance.

The Series

To introduce the Surface Duo to our audience as the productivity device that helps achieve balance, we knew we had to go beyond specs and features, telling a story that mirrored people’s daily lives. And so, In The Balance was born, a new, original content, mini-series. It’s a WFH, comedy-drama. In a relatable yet thrilling series, Lisa (played by Lily Frazer, actor in the BAFTA-nominated British thriller, Saint Maud) is quite literally hanging in the balance as she juggles her home life while unlocking a supernatural sabotage plot on her first day in a new job.

The situation forces her to jump between various roles at work and at home, creating moments of hilarious comedy and edge-of-the-seat confrontations with a mysterious saboteur. Finally, thanks to Surface Duo, Lisa is able to unlock the mystery and save the day.

Intro

RE:SURFACE

To show that Microsoft Surface helps artists and creators connect with audiences, we created a campaign that virtually brought back live gigs during a global pandemic.

In 2020, the connection between artists, especially musicians and audiences, was broken. With emerging artists being hit the hardest. DIY live streams became the norm but they couldn’t live up to the real live music experience people craved. So we asked ourselves, could Microsoft Surface help artists recreate the magic of live performance? Our answer was RE:Surface – A blueprint to bring back live music.

The RE:Surface blueprint is an approach to digital live streams, developed in partnership with technology experts in live music, broadcast and designed to help emerging artists put on the digital live gigs that audiences love. To bring the blueprint to life and to create our first prototype, the RE:Surface live gig, we partnered up with up-and-coming artist Jade Bird. Her biggest ever tour had just been cancelled and Jade and her band were committed to performing for their fans, even if it meant performing out of their bedrooms, garages, or parents’ living rooms!

And so it came to life, with gloriously high definition live video and audio and real-time audience interaction – exactly what audiences and artists had been craving. But we didn’t stop there, based on the success of Jade’s gig we released everything we’d learned as a blueprint others could follow: A live workshop with Jade and the tech team, and blueprint videos covering every aspect of what goes into performing a world-class, live digital gig.