The Odd Forest is an initiative created by Odd Global to connect generative production with something tangible in the physical world.

For every production we complete native trees are planted through Banks Peninsula Conservation Trust in Te Pātaka o Rākaihautū Banks Peninsula. The number of trees reflects the overall scale of each project and its approximate use of image and video generation.

THE LAUNCH FILM

To introduce the initiative we created a launch film produced entirely with generative AI.

The film turns the premise into a deadpan New Zealand bush-scout comedy. An overly enthusiastic guide takes three distinctly unimpressed young scouts through a regenerating native forest while explaining how the AI generations behind Odd Global’s productions are helping to plant what surrounds them.

The good and the bad generations. Mostly the bad ones.

Produced from the ground up using generative image and video workflows the project involved developing the characters and environments and visual language before building the film shot by shot through AI. It became both the communication piece for the initiative and another production contributing trees to the forest itself.

A deliberately circular idea: a film generated with AI about turning AI generations into native regeneration.

The work is digital. The forest is real.

Explore The Odd Forest →

Film / AI Production / Product Education

Zentera, formerly The New Zealand Merino Company, is the company behind ZQ and ZQ+, wool standards focused on high quality wool grown with care for animals, land and people. For their Merino education platform, Zentera created a dedicated digital experience explaining the performance benefits of merino wool and how the fibre works. Zentera Wool

Merino Deep Dive was produced as a film to sit at the centre of that story. The production was a collaboration between Zentera, ODD Global and Ian Sweeney, with Ian leading script and creative supervision and ODD leading the AI film concept and production process.

The film needed to make invisible performance visible. The brief called for control, accuracy, sophistication and clarity, translating technical fibre benefits into a cinematic visual language that could be understood quickly without losing the intelligence of the subject.

The production was built around a structured AI workflow, using still image development, animatic approval and then motion production to reduce surprises later in the process.

Visually, the film moved between merino sheep, wool staples, fibre interiors, macro textures and abstracted performance moments. Each image needed to feel beautiful but also precise, with the softness and warmth of natural fibre balanced against the clarity required for product education. The process involved broad visual exploration, finessed rounds and targeted retouching where specific scientific or material details needed to be portrayed.

The final piece combined AI image and motioin with traditional post-production to create a modern educational film with a premium cinematic tone. Voiceover by Antonia Prebble and sound design and mix by Factory Studio helped give the film its final rhythm, polish and emotional authority.

The assets from the production were also extended into Zentera’s online merino education page, giving the campaign a broader life beyond the film and helping turn the visual system into a wider product storytelling platform:Zentera Wool

Using AI in this context created a production pathway suited to the subject itself: precise, controlled and visually ambitious. It allowed the team to develop a complete visual language for merino performance, from sheep to fibre structure to finished fabric, while keeping the process transparent and structured from script to final delivery.

Credits
Client: Zentera
Head of Marketing: Katrina Comeskey
Content and Creative Lead: Jasmine Shaughnessy
Chief Operating Officer: Teresa Callow
Script and Creative Supervision: Ian Sweeney
AI Direction and Production: ODD Global
Voiceover: Antonia Prebble
Sound Design and Mix: Factory Studio

Advertising Producers Aotearoa wanted to explore how AI could become genuinely useful to its producer community, not simply as another creative tool but as practical production infrastructure.

Working alongside Paul Kennedy and Charlotte Glennon at APA, Odd Global developed APA ProducerGPT, a custom AI production assistant built around APA-approved materials and key New Zealand production references.

Rather than relying on generic AI knowledge, ProducerGPT was designed around the realities of producing commercial work in Aotearoa. It brings together industry resources into a conversational tool producers can use to help scope jobs, break down scripts, identify potential production risks, build checklists and navigate everyday production questions.

The project involved structuring and translating a substantial body of industry knowledge into an AI system that could understand production context and provide useful answers while keeping the original source material at the centre of its responses.

Alongside ProducerGPT, APA also developed an AI Best Practice Guide, giving its members practical guidance for navigating the rapidly changing role of generative AI in advertising production.

The result is an example of AI working behind the scenes rather than being the final product: helping experienced people access knowledge faster, interrogate a brief and make better-informed production decisions.

Client: Advertising Producers Aotearoa (APA)
Project: APA ProducerGPT + AI Best Practice Guide
Odd Global: AI Strategy, Tool Development & Implementation
In collaboration with: Paul Kennedy & Charlotte Glennon, APA

Big Save is a New Zealand furniture brand with a strong connection to local homes, landscapes and materials. For their Big Wool campaign, the idea was to bring that connection into the images themselves, placing selected furniture pieces into photographs of Big Save’s actual farms and natural environments in New Zealand.

The campaign needed to feel distinctly New Zealand: open, honest and tactile. Sofas, mattresses and recliners were integrated into real farm and coastal landscape photography, connecting the comfort of the products with the natural source of the wool.

ODD produced a series of campaign images with a focus on seamless product integration. Each frame required careful attention to product accuracy, scale, perspective, lighting and material texture so the furniture felt physically present in the original location photography rather than simply placed on top of a background.

The work balanced photographic realism with a campaign sensibility. The images needed to feel aspirational but grounded, with natural light, wide compositions and a sense of quiet scale that allowed both the product and the environment to hold the frame.

The final image set was created in horizontal and vertical formats to support multiple placements across digital and print. This allowed the campaign to move flexibly between website, social, retail, outdoor and promotional formats while keeping a consistent visual world across the full Big Wool story.

Credits
Client: Big Save
Campaign: Big Wool
AI Production: ODD Global

When Strategy Creative reached out with a campaign for PGDB, the goal was clear. They wanted to get the public thinking twice before hiring someone just because they say they’re a plumber, gasfitter or drainlayer.

So we helped bring that message to life with a series of everyday scenarios where things have gone very obviously, very wrong.

The Idea

Each visual shows a job that looks legit at first glance, but on closer inspection is a total disaster. A wall light leaking water above a bed. A toilet dropped right in the middle of a kitchen. A living room full of gas smoke.

It all ties back to the same message: “Don’t just take their word for it.” Because when it comes to trades like plumbing and gasfitting, a mistake isn’t just inconvenient, it can be dangerous.

Our Role

We worked with Strategy Creative to develop and produce the visuals across digital billboards, bus backs and online placements. The aim was to create something that felt believable at first, then twisted just enough to make people stop and look twice.

Every scene was carefully designed to sit naturally in the city environment while delivering that moment of “hang on, what?” as people passed by.

The Result

The campaign rolled out across major cities in Aotearoa and PGDB’s online channels, sparking plenty of double takes. The message landed clearly: check for a licence before you hire.

It’s a reminder that a strong creative idea can travel fast when the visuals are sharp, simple and a little bit cheeky.

We kept our role small and surgical. Our goal was to craft blink length inserts that echo the haunting themes and blend into the rhythm of the edit. We focused on imagery that breath like pulses in darkness, fleeting textures and classic haunting visuals generated with AI, matched grain and grade, and delivered for the editorial team to drop them in as they wished.

Small pieces, big atmosphere.

• Song written and performed by The MC Type and Emma Dilemma.
• Video written and directed by Ian Sweeney.
• Prod. Co: Fish&Clips.
• Producer: Johnny Gilbert
• DP: Simon Tutty.
• Starring Julie Collins, Jeff Tune, Emma Cameron, Rochelle Mangan, Travis Lightband, Danelle Hills, Ella Lucas, and Will Jammeh.
• Hair and MakUp: Look.Bomb.
• Editor: Ben Chesters.
• Wardrobe: Derya Parlak.
• Art Director: Madison Christian.
• 1st AC: Kim Thomas
• Gaffer: Karl Saunders
• Best Boy: Paul Abbott
• Art Assistant: Olivia Waton
• H&M: Lisa Shearer Online
• Editor: Anita Ward
• Colourist: Julian Vares
• Sound Mix: Brendan Morrow
• AI Artist: Arthur Machado
• Camera House: Image Zone

Working solo, Arthur Machado scripted, storyboarded and produced the entire piece with generative tools. Crafted prompts created stylized transitions that whisk Santa between activities while keeping a coherent look and cheerful tone. 

Released on December 10, 2024, the film earned coverage from Campaign Brief and regional media, spreading seasonal goodwill while positioning Christchurch as a world-class destination. 

Credits:

Concept, Direction and Production: Arthur Machado
Distribution support: Christchurch Attractions, Paranoid Brasil, Resonate.

Created, Produced and Directed by Arthur Machado.

Project Odyssey Top 50 Finalist in the Spec Ad category.

Credits:

Concept, Producer, Director: Arthur Machado