Experiencing Interruptions?

What Is A Smile?

A short film created by our company Sum Effect in answer to the question, "What does the world need, that our unique talents can provide?". We titled it "What is a smile?".

  • Kate Ellen Campbell
    Director
  • Matt Reed
    Director
  • Kate Ellen Campbell
    Writer
  • Lisa Reed
    Producer
  • Haresh Chandra
    Sound Designer
  • Matt Reed
    Colourist
  • Kim Wood
    Graphics
  • Project Type:
    Experimental, Short, Web / New Media
  • Genres:
    Creativity, Culture, Exploration
  • Runtime:
    2 minutes 40 seconds
  • Completion Date:
    March 28, 2023
  • Production Budget:
    10,000 AUD
  • Country of Origin:
    Australia
  • Country of Filming:
    Australia
  • Language:
    English
  • Shooting Format:
    Canon Digital
  • Aspect Ratio:
    16:9
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
Director Biography - Kate Ellen Campbell, Matt Reed

Matt Reed, Co-Director
Since 2006, Matt has been developing a skillset that allows him to be thrown into the unknown and find strong images.

He is creative, intuitive, quickly grasps new ideas, adapts, thinks laterally, and can roll on the fly.

He’s happiest when making things with good people. People feel comfortable and relaxed around him. Our humble leader. No ego.

Kate Ellen Campbell, Co-Director
For 4+ years, since graduating from the WA Screen Academy, Kate has been working as a film editor in Perth.

She has worked on advertising and corporate projects, and on short films, both narrative and documentary. Now at Sum Effect, she is shaping final product videos and flexing her creative muscles with narrative projects in branded films.

A breath of fresh air, a voice of reason and an old soul with energy to dance.

Add Director Biography
Director Statement

We started off with a challenge. How do we create a narrative that showcases Sum Effect and our gallery of work?

The first part of that is Sum Effect. What is Sum Effect? What do we provide that the world needs? What do we want to be doing moving forward?

These questions have a million answers but the very core of our company is simple, a smile. A genuine smile that comes from the heart, it’s why we get out of bed.

But what is that? What makes a smile genuine? What makes a smile, a smile?

The second part of our challenge was the gallery of work. Kate reviewed over 10 years of projects, cataloguing genres’, subjects, landscapes, any commonality she could find, and set about exploring how we could use this footage to portray Sum Effects’ values and beliefs.

This is where we found our narrative. An exploration of a question:
What is a smile?

It was important to us that the video conveys a sense of abundance, diversity, and possibility, communicating to potential clients that we can and have done just about anything you might need.

Contrary to that, we didn’t want the video to feel as if we were selling something, but rather inviting the audience on a
journey of exploration.

Letting our footage guide us we wrote a poetic voice over that leads the audience though the narrative, asking them to connect and relate to the video.

Embracing the high energy that comes with such a expansive portfolio and the incorporation of video and still photography we encouraged audiences to leave wanting more and with a smile on their face.