Blurry Oval
Anonymization by blur places a visual barrier between the audience and the contributors.
Digital Veil
Veils protect contributors and allow subtle nonverbal cues to pass through.
Founded to support journalistic storytelling, we provide identity preserving treatments that help protect the privacy of people who cannot be seen on camera.
We have developed a process to digitally disguise documentary contributors.
The disguise is a veil that provides anonymity while preserving subtle non-verbal emotion found only in first-person testimony .
Anonymization by blur places a visual barrier between the audience and the contributors.
Veils protect contributors and allow subtle nonverbal cues to pass through.
Director Toby Paton provides insight into the 2019-2020 protests in Hong Kong, as he explores how the stakes escalated for all involved.
Hong Kong’s Fight for Freedom is two part series, that features veiling of four contributors in about 20 minute of interview footage. This project is the first use of digital veils in a TV Documentary, an achievement that shows our progress towards a widely accessible technology.
The programme is currently available from BBC in the UK and is set for a broader release soon.
Into The Deep provides an incredible glimpse into the lives of secondary victims, the people affected by the fallout around a violent crime.
Australian filmmaker Emma Sullivan was covering an amateur inventor when the unthinkable happened, he murdered another journalist. The film shows us the journey of his young teammates, and the director, as they realize their incredibly close relationships with a violent murderer.
For Into The Deep, we explored an artistic style in the visual 'tell' and we included an painterly effect along with the soft halo.
Into the Deep is currently streaming on Netflix.
Automation allows us to provide this a high-quality VFX treatment at a cost within reach of many documentary projects.
FACELESS is an intimate portrayal of four young people struggling to protect their freedom and way of life under the shadow of new authoritarianism in Hong Kong.
This 82 minute feature documentary by director Jennifer Ngo, was picked up by Dogwoof (Blackfish, Free Solo, I Am Greta), and is now available for streaming on VICE.
David France used the treatment to mask 24 contributors in his documentary Welcome to Chechnya which chronicles some of the state's human rights atrocities.
David called the treatment a deep truth because it faithfully conveys the testimony, allowing his contributors to speak the truth without the fear of being tortured for doing so.
This video provides a brief technical overview of Automated Face Replacements, the digial veil treatment we developed for Welcome To Chechnya.
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We strive for the highest level of integrity and have given great consideration to how we have implemented identity masking.
We have consulted with experts including MIT Open Documentary Lab, and the Co-Creation Studio. We have had the good fortune of informed guidance and thoughtful support throughout the development of our ethics-grounded strategies.
Here are just a few ways in which we maintain journalistic integrity:
Journalists have a new tool to help protect the safety of their contributors.
The People must be free to speak.
