Ben Watson's Creative Process of Combining Digital and Physical Worlds

Throughout the creative process for "Can I Tell You a Secret," one of the main challenges I faced was conveying the sheer volume of messages over several years. The directors wanted the graphics to exude energy while also serving to tell the story.

My personal approach when working on motion graphics is to treat the shots as if they were being filmed by a physical camera crew. With this in mind, I designed all the social media graphics to have an accurate physical texture and feel.

As the story of the series spans several years, I wanted to reinforce the texture idea by researching how LED screens appeared during the specific time periods covered in the series. These changes may be barely noticeable, but I believe this subtle detail adds to the nostalgic atmosphere and reinforces the notion that the stalker was active for nearly a decade.

The virtual cameras were modelled after a macro probe lens, as it's the only lens capable of capturing the close-up framing we desired. Replicating processes such as lens distortion, optical vignetting, and depth of field all helped to create a look for the graphics that was not only aesthetically pleasing but also based in physical reality.

The priority when designing the scenes was to base the digital graphics in the physical world, as it was all aimed at helping to convey the story in the end. The women's stories featured in the series had their physical worlds completely changed by the digital one, so incorporating this idea throughout our work undoubtedly contributed to the series' narrative.

The "beams," as we referred to them, are included in the documentary purely to convey the tone throughout. They serve as a visual representation of the cyber stalker himself and became quite a prominent part of the series. Therefore, I didn't want them to feel off or distracting, but rather an integral part of the narrative.

Lastly, our work on this project involved designing shots while the offline edit was still being put together, which is an unusual approach for us. However, as with most documentaries, the story forms in the edit, and the messages being a significant part of the story meant we had to be adaptable. Despite the challenges, only a few shots ended up on the cutting room floor, which was satisfying to see in the end.