Commission creative direction

The problem

The people who most need your message are not looking for it. A song, a film or a book is something they choose to watch, and it carries the message with it.

What we do

• Creative direction. We lead the creative direction of your production, working with your team and respecting your budget.
• Narrative and concept. The story, the imaginaries and the world the work lives in, built around the themes you want to bring together.
• References and world-building. We work from the references you already have, and bring the ones you do not.
• Songwriting. Original songs written to your topic, in English or Portuguese.
• Production, when you need it. Delivered through our curated and approved partners, across music, screen, photography and publishing.

How it works

1. You send the topic, the audience and the goal.
2. We propose the concept, the references and the narrative.
3. We lead the creative direction, working alongside your production team.
4. You own the finished work. If you need the production made as well, our curated and approved partners deliver it.

Why us

A creative innovation studio led by Dr WELI, an award-winning creative director, evolutionary ecologist (PhD, ANU) and recording artist, originator of sci pop. He directed Kangaroo Time, the AAAS Dance Your PhD Overall Winner 2024, and the credits for it are further down this page. What he brings is a creative director who weaves scientific thinking into the making, alongside aesthetics and themes drawn from science and science fiction, and multicultural and other cultural references, chosen to suit what you are trying to say. We work on complex or technical topics: science, health, sustainability, inclusion and culture.

Who it is for

Communications and marketing leads, culture and belonging teams, university engagement and research-impact teams, museums and science centres, campaign and community leads including government CALD campaigns, NGOs and public-sector programs.

What it costs

Commissions are quoted to your brief, and we work to your budget rather than a fixed menu. What moves the number is the scope of the direction, how long we are on it, and whether you want us to make the work as well or only to lead it. Send the topic, the audience and your budget; we reply within two working days. Our past work is below.

Sci pop

Sci pop is a term WELI coined: a science aesthetic, theme or method in contemporary pop, songs that carry a scientific story and a human one at once, met as feeling first. It ranges from peer-reviewed research to the cultural imaginaries of science and scientists, across the sciences, the natural world, human society and the technologies we build. The releases below are the first works in the lane, and EVER+GROW sets its sound.

Our work

A scientific story can reach a wide audience as a song people watch and hear. These are the released works and the ongoing Photography Project, each carrying a researched theme and a human one at once.

Released 2024 · song, film, dance cast

Kangaroo Time

Kangaroo Time is the first major music work behind sci pop. It grows from Dr WELI's PhD research on eastern grey kangaroos into a song, a film and a Canberra dance cast, and it was named the AAAS Dance Your PhD Overall Winner 2024. The song parallels kangaroo behavioural differences with dance styles drawn from multicultural Canberra, so the title phrase holds WELI's time researching kangaroos, his time as a PhD student and his time as a migrant in Australia at once. "Differences lead to diversity" became the project's message, and the lens for the work that followed.

Full credits, press and how it landed

Source research

Dr WELI's PhD work on kangaroo personality, social environment and maternal effects at the Australian National University. The research covered individual personality in 300+ wild eastern grey kangaroos at Wilsons Promontory.

Press

"Carries meaning nonetheless in its joyful madness." Sean Cummings, Science Magazine / AAAS, 26 February 2024. "A musical celebration of kangaroo behavior." Smithsonian Magazine, 28 February 2024. "Winning this contest is the equivalent of winning Eurovision for me." WELI, ANU Reporter, 27 February 2024. "The winning video is described as joyful madness." Stephanie Ruhle, MSNBC The 11th Hour, 1 March 2024.

• Science Magazine / AAAS, Sean Cummings, 26 February 2024 ↗
• ANU Reporter, George Booth, 27 February 2024 ↗
• The Guardian, 27 February 2024 ↗
• Smithsonian Magazine, 28 February 2024 ↗
• NPR, 4 May 2024 ↗
• ABC News, 28 February 2024 ↗
• Full press atlas ↗

Credits

• Direction. Weliton Menário Costa (Dr WELI).
• Production. Nic Vevers (ANU Science).
• Song. Kangaroo Time (Club Edit) by WELI, co-songwriter Nicholas Moynihan (ANU Music School).
• Sound engineering. Matthew Barnes (ANU Music School).
• Kangaroo photography and field footage. Weliton Menario Costa, taken during PhD fieldwork at ANU.

Cast

Faux Nee Phish, Holly Hazlewood, Marina de Andrade (Drag). Megan Aponte-Payne, Trish Dias, Shelly Giorgi, Crystal Prior (Samba). Laura Pelaez, Wendy Xin Xiao (Salsa). Olivia Sutton, Jazz Zollinger (Ballet). Cynthia (Bharathanatyam). Mogendhri Muller, Thomas Muller (Salsa). Lucas Nelson (Club). Chichi Curtarelli (Baby). Rachael Remington, Trevor Unmack, Andrew Unmack (Hip Hop). Georgina Negem, Jeff, Chily (Brazilian Funk). David Pandora (Fight). Valquiria Menario Costa, WELI (Club).

Research acknowledgement

Prof Loeske Kruuk (PhD supervisor). Prof Marco Festa-Bianchet (PhD co-supervisor). Dr Wendy J. King (collaborator). Dr Timothee Bonnet (collaborator). Prof Justin Borevitz (current supervisor). Fieldwork assistants and the community in the lab and at E&E/ANU.

Research support

Fieldwork assistance from the Holsworth Wildlife Research Endowment and Ecological Society of Australia. Student scholarship from the Australian National University. Research programme from NSERC CRSNG (Canada).

Special thanks

@ScienceANU. La Casa del Ritmo. Phish and Phreak Productions. Rio Samba Shows. The Canberra music and dance communities. Photography and production stills of Kangaroo Time used throughout this site by Nic Vevers.

Watch Listen How it landed

Released 2024 · original song, Latin pop

Cabra da Peste (G.O.A.T.)

Cabra da Peste is a research-to-song original by WELI, built from his undergraduate goat research and running the same sci pop craft in a second language. It was commissioned for and performed at the opening plenary of the Encontro Anual de Etologia 2024 in Brazil, titled Creativity and Science unifying communities. It is sung in Portuguese with the English sub-title G.O.A.T. In Brazilian Portuguese its words carry the science and the courtship story at the same time: "February" is the goat mating season and Carnival, and "cabra" names the goat and a tough, charismatic man.

Listen

Ongoing · open to new locations

The Photography Project

Imagery about people, animals and shared landscapes takes a room of collaborators to make. The project is open to co-host in new locations and ecosystems, and to photographers, models, hair-and-make-up artists, stylists and other creatives.

Co-host a session Propose a session

Listen

The released tracks stream on the usual platforms. These are the WELI recordings to date.

Sync

Music can travel with film and television, but only when the rights are clear. Many catalogues stall at that step. The WELI catalogue is cleared and open for sync.

Kangaroo Time has been sync-licensed by three international broadcasters since 2024. They are MSNBC The 11th Hour in the United States, UFA Show and Factual in Germany, and Productions Mustang III in Canada.

• Sync licensing for television, film, documentary, advertising and brand work. Instrumentals, vocal mixes and stems on request.
• Music video direction. Concept, casting and creative direction.
• Label and broadcaster partnerships, project by project.
• Festivals and live programming, built around the released catalogue.

Shop

The work carries on into things you can hold. The shop offers books, educational materials, prints and wear drawn from the studio's projects.

Become a partner

The studio grows through partners. You can fund a programme, take up ongoing creative work, or commission a piece. Each path opens a real conversation about what we make together.

Upcoming work

Next is EVER+GROW, our upcoming sci pop album, with album planning and design in progress. New work takes time and partners before it reaches release.

Artist

The featured artist is WELI (Dr Weliton Menário Costa), a Brazilian evolutionary ecologist and recording and performing artist. He delivers in English and Portuguese, with the catalogue on Spotify and YouTube. WildWooHoo directs and partners the work.