Video Stack: Ari Fararooy, Tom Brady’s Visual Trickster and Master of Surreal Social Cinema
Filmmaker, visual artist, and looping wizard of the social age.
Hey everyone,
How’s summer going? I’m Erika and lead marketing and partnerships for the Eddie team. Shamir’s on vacation today, so I am sending this on his behalf (don’t worry, there’s not a bunch of marketing stuff in here!)
On our side, the team’s been heads-down on a big new feature we’re launching next week, one I’m especially excited about. Hint: If your workflow starts with a script, stay tuned….
In the midst of all that, it was really cool to see one of our users, Navik Nanubhai, share how he’s been using Eddie for logging in No Film School. Always great to see Eddie out in the wild.
This week, we’ve got a good one. Our Video Stack by Efosa dives into the mind of Ari Fararooy, the visual trickster behind some of the weirdest, most mesmerizing sports content on your feed. His Tom Brady videos alone are worth the scroll, but it’s the post work that really makes them magic.
More below,
Erika
If Gaspar Noe discovered TikTok and had a knack for VFX, you might get something close to Ari Fararooy.
Filmmaker, visual artist, and looping wizard of the social age.
His work bends time, duplicates bodies, and floats footballs through space like it's just another Tuesday. And somehow, it all still fits inside your phone screen.
You’ve seen his clips, even if you don’t know his name.
You probably saw Tom Brady firing three consecutive passes into a Jugs machine like it’s nothing and wondered how Brady did it.
Well, ask Ari.
At a glance, it’s sports content. Upon closer inspection its VFX art, motion study, and visual comedy with million-dollar production value.
Built for the scroll. Designed to loop. Hard not to watch again.
Film Nerd to Visual Trickster
Before A-listers and ESPN deals, Fararooy was just a film student with a sense of mischief. He studied at Binghamton College in Boston, where he began experimenting with self-portraits and video loops whilst studying medicine. Often cloning himself in hypnotic, low-fi scenarios.
After graduation, he moved to L.A., couch-surfing with relatives, interning on film sets, shuttling hard drives between directors and VFX artists.
He pirated After Effects, taught himself VFX through trial and error, then hit the road with a Sony NEX-7 for a solo, three-week trip from Boston to L.A.
Driving Across America Alone: A Surreal Road Trip
Driving Across America Alone (2014) wasn’t just a travel vlog, a surrealist self-portrait, stitched together across 3,500 miles of solitude.
Armed with a camera, a tripod, and head full of weird ideas, Fararooy set out from East Coast to the West, filming himself in strange, looping, and mind-bending scenarios. Sometimes he clones himself in a desert. Sometimes glitching mid-jump. Sometimes he walks backwards through a cornfield while his other self watches.
Part introspection part absurdism.
America is stranger than fiction and Fararooy depicted all of that. Not just the destination. It’s the 3am magic at gas stations. The Diner cooks doubling as cashiers. Realizing you haven’t spoken to anyone in days and catching your reflection talking back.
Fararooy captured all of that.
It went viral, earning praise for its inventiveness and haunting tone. And more importantly, it introduced Fararooy’s signature: using VFX not for spectacle alone, but to express something internal. Something uncanny.
Something only possible in post.
It certainly wasn’t super polished, but it showed Fararooy had bite and YouTube wanted a piece. So did Vimeo.
Soon so did major brands, celebrities, and creative directors hungry for something weird, fresh, and very online.
A-List Collaborators, Out-of-Body Edits
Fararooy would then go on to reshape what celebrity content for social media could be. His pieces with Tom Brady, Will Smith, and Steph Curry aren’t the traditional promo. They feel like dreams you’d have after bingeing Sunday NFL and a Salvador Dalí exhibit.
The magic lies in the sleight of hand. Fararooy uses VFX not to fake skill, but to fool you into believing it actually happened.
With Tom Brady, he almost succeeded.
In another, Will Smith splits into multiple versions of himself before jumping into a fourth wall he just broke.
What makes Fararooy’s work click is his total, hands-on ownership of the filmmaking process. Not merely calling the shots from a director’s chair, he’s simultaneously cutting the footage.
Because a single mind is guiding every stage, each decision reinforces the last: pacing meshes with VFX beats, color grades echo narrative themes, and the final edit feels like one cohesive thought rather than a committee compromise.
Gear & Workflow
High-end when needed (REDs, Blackmagics) but compact and quick when it counts. He often shoots fast, with minimal crew, relying on post-production to build the illusion.
Ari’s workflow is highly modular. He adapts per project with nothing in his workflow remaining the same.
Editing happens mostly in Adobe Premiere, then After Effects does the heavy VFX lifting. Some shots require frame-by-frame rotoscoping, object tracking, and compositing. Meticulous work that doesn’t look meticulous. Effortless. That’s the trick.
Signature Style: Hyperreal & Hypnotic
Think looping GIFs with a soul. Visual metaphors that reflect his subjects’ personas: Tom Brady, the time lord. Will Smith, the multiverse explorer. Steph Curry, well, he just doesn’t miss.
It’s ESPN meets David Lynch, with a side of YouTube remix culture.
And it’s almost always vertical. His videos are optimized for Instagram and TikTok. They don’t feel like ads. They feel like experimental shorts that accidentally became viral marketing.
Direct to Feed
Unlike traditional sports commercials or glossy brand spots, Fararooy’s videos feel somewhat personal. Built for the feed, not the billboard. Short, but layered. Often they loop perfectly, designed to keep viewers stuck in a hypnotic cycle of “wait, what just happened?”
That replayability is no accident. It’s part of what makes his work feel addictive. They’re not just visually slick, they’re structurally clever. You’re pulled in. Then rewarded when you watch again.
Influence & Legacy
Fararooy is a true post-production native. Part of a new vanguard of visual artists who live in the timeline. Every frame engineered to make the impossible feel inevitable, turning VFX from punchline to proof of limitless possibility.
Commercial, personal, and the experimental all blur into one.
It’s all one sandbox.
He may work behind the scenes, but his visuals are front and center. Like a lucid dream rendered in 4K. Like the loop you didn’t mean to watch three times.
In an age allergic to artifice, Fararooy shows sometimes there's magic in faking it, and when done well, you won't be mad you got duped..