Photo courtesy of DIAZ
Photo courtesy of DIAZ
Photo courtesy of DIAZ
80 days, 14 creatives and a seven-year anniversary. That’s what it took to create BECOMING. The passion project began as a simple idea in the summer of 2024 at the DIAZ Ad Group. It would eventually become a visual narrative made in collaboration with American photograher Alicia Stepp.
DIAZ has been on Greenville Avenue for almost five years. In that time, they have cultivated a small but mighty army of creatives that execute branding, advertising and marketing services across various mediums including photography and video.
While the army has their marching orders, creating on behalf of their clients, they occasionally march to a different tune. Coming up on their seven-year anniversary, the group was on the brink of a new project. While they didn’t know exactly what it would be called at the time, they knew it had to be representative of this period of growth and evolution they had gone through to get to this point. It would be called BECOMING.
“We obviously have our own clients that we cater to,” Head of Production Marcos Celis says. “This was definitely more of a passion project for us — it wasn’t necessarily something that someone was paying us to do. We wanted to just be creative, gather a lot of local creatives that are extremely talented to us and just create something different, create something amazing that we’re all passionate about.”
The team describes the piece as an ode to their journey of “stepping fearlessly into the unknown,” while highlighting fashion and creativity in the process.
“There was a need to stand back and to really see, ‘What is the vision going forward in this next year? What does the future look like? What is the future we want to be part of, and how do we craft that?’ And then it became this larger picture of, ‘How do we craft this future that becomes so desirable that we just can’t ignore it? How do we partner with other creatives to help us bring this future to life?’” Brand Director Dean Yorimitsu says.
The process called everyone who touched it to reflect on the project’s themes, both for the group and for themselves as collaborators.
“Everyone that’s a part of the project at their different stages of life, in their career — what are they becoming? What is DIAZ becoming? And it wasn’t the original intent, but it kind of just flowed so well that it became the purpose behind why it became named BECOMING,” Celis says.
This intense self reflection combined with their creative process provided a unique opportunity for the team to work together in a brand-new way. Yorimitsu recalls the last day of set being somewhat emotional, as the group had grown close while shooting the project.
“By the end of it, we all felt like family. It was just like we didn’t want to leave,” Yorimitsu says. “So that was one big moment where everything was coming together. Everyone was in alignment. There was passion and creativity and respect and unity in the environment, and that was very memorable.”
Once the crew had the project finalized, it was time to figure out how to reveal it. The group had previously started to host networking events, bringing together locals in the industry and creatives that operated in tandem with their work to overlap in the same space for an evening.
They had their next one planned for December, and while they didn’t plan for it to be in line with when they were finally ready to share their passion project with the community, they felt the opportunity was one they couldn’t miss.
That evening, the space was filled with the team that created the project and others simply waiting in anticipation to watch the visual narrative in full, after living off of the teasers the group had posted onto social media.
“To build everything up to that moment was kind of more than words can really express,” Yorimitsu says of the event’s turnout and project reveal.
The event was curated to feel immersive as the film was projected into space while models walked in, splitting the crowd in half — a real life intrusion of the film’s events.
To date, the project is accessible across multiple social media platforms, now a living testament to DIAZ’s seven years and the creatives that collaborated to bring it to life.
“There’s so many pieces that are a part of it, but just everyone kind of comes together and plays their role and it just makes it even that much sweeter to be a part of,” Celis says.
