Campfire stories

With their slick, high-quality branded films, Campfire aims to make people feel human again through their engaging visual stories created for events and associated brands. The brainchild of advertising and branded film director Sam Wark, Campfire, in its brief history, has shot ‘branded’ films, ‘commercials’ and promotional material for some of Adelaide’s most prestigious events and brands including Adelaide Fringe, WOMADelaide, Henschke and Tour Down Under. Currently, Campfire is a team of four with Stacey Saliba (digital producer), George Graetz (content creator) and Karl Mizzi (motion graphics designer) joining Wark.

Wark, who has more than 18 years’ experience in film production and advertising, returned to Adelaide from Melbourne to bring his east coast production values back home to the state he loves and believes in.

“I worked as creative director for Novatech, then had this idea: there’s a space for creative content out there to help promote events, capture events and leverage brands off them. The idea behind Campfire is it’s symbolic to a place that brings people together where stories are shared through a visual medium.”

Campfire’s portfolio is divided into four streams: A-Live Experience (content to be shown at live events), Branded Films (short documentaries), Catch & Release (event content to be shared quickly) and Promo for Fomo (promotion material).

A-Live Experience:

“That’s for heightening a big live experience through projection and audio content – big wraps or building projections with mixMotion design and footage to heighten the experience with Novatech’s tech, their team and creative IP,” Wark explains.

Branded Films:

“If there’s a story to tell and a brand wants to leverage off an event or reach new eyeballs through having a really engaging story, we can tell that story,” Wark says.

Catch & Release:

“This is where we professionally shoot an event and turn it into something nice very quickly,” Wark says. “Adelaide Fringe and WOMADelaide engaged us this year, so we’ve been pumping out content for them, capturing those events in a beautiful way and then releasing it quickly to get the word out there. Content is king and the quickest wins.”

Promo for Fomo:

“Simply, this is promoting the fear of missing out. Something’s coming up, you get us on board early. It can be anything – an event or a launch of a new brand or product. With my advertising DNA I will help strategise that to be released at the right time.”

Campfire can also package a combination of the four streams for maximum impact.

“It can be a strategic Promo for Fomo followed by a Catch & Release,” Wark says. “A Branded Film can come off the back of it all to create a flowthrough for those bigger events.”

One of Wark’s most memorable projects was Rundle Mall’s Voices of Christmas where they shot 35 bits of content to digitally enhance the live experience.

“We shot and interviewed the choirs and the choir masters,” he says. “We went out bush and captured Indigenous choirs and regional choirs and then we brought it all together to have a 300-piece choir digitally on screen but synched up with another 260 people singing live in the Mall – on one screen, all in synch. So, you had people all over the state singing on the screen and it rolled into one big digital/live choir, which had never been done in the Southern Hemisphere before. We had to work that out. And do that.”

It’s a travesty that we’ve got some of the best stuff going on in the country that people don’t know about.

Campfire collaborates with leading technical events company Novatech, to work on some of South Australia’s largest events that make South Australia the Festival State, such as Adelaide Fringe. Part of the reason Wark came back to Adelaide was to promote South Australia’s world-class festivals and events to the world.

“Being the Festival State, we’ve got festivals and events happening all the time. But not many people know about them interstate. It’s a travesty that we’ve got some of the best stuff going on in the country that people don’t know about. I want to make more noise about it and professionally shoot it and get it out there, so people are like, ‘Wow, that’s worth travelling to Adelaide for.’”

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