Oliver Charland
Oliver Charland is a multidisciplinary designer from Montréal, Canada. His work takes shape through an array of mediums, always maintaining a sense of play and joy. He has worked with clients such as Apple, Sagmesiter & Walsh, and Vallée Duhamel – and is also the co-founder of Par Hasard Studio, a Montréal-based creative studio focused on image-making.
V:
What film has had the most impact on your practice, and how has it directly influenced your work?
OC:
That’s a hard question…so many little parts of a bunch of movies influenced or have inspired me at different times.
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is one film that keeps coming to mind. It is a beautiful movie first and foremost, but how its filmed is most influential for me. Using real-life visual effects (without CGI), like optical illusions and various other tricks helps set the tone for surreal scenes. This opened my mind to the fact that you can make amazing films with simple visual techniques, you don’t need a huge budget to make visually interesting stuff basically. The film also allowed me to discover the work of Michel Gondry more in depth – he is a huge inspiration now!
V:
Your work centers around different realities, wether that being the graphic landscapes you paint or the still life images you art direct – if there was one film you could make your reality, what would that be?
OC:
The Fifth Element…even though the film takes place in a very dystopian version of New York City, the technology and lifestyle seems pretty cool – flying cars, small but hyper-functional apartments, and weird concerts.
The Matrix
Neo, a computer programmer, is drawn into an underworld where he discovers the reality he lives in is actually a computer system called The Matrix. In this world he is led to fight a battle against a deceptive evil cyber-intelligence.
V:
If you had to choose only one film you could watch for the rest of your life, what would it be?
OC:
The Matrix, without a doubt! This movie blew my mind when I first saw it around 12 years old. Everything about it visually is super interesting to me – specifically, the idea of how they move through the matrix by bending the rules of gravity. Even though the film is over 20 years old, it’s still beautifully executed and portrayed. Most importantly, the film opened up so many new questions about the world, the future, and AI. The film is fun to watch every two years!