Comments on: Simon Robson: “Taking Liberties”

By: Brett

Brett — Sat, 26 May 2007 10:25:59 +0000

Aww, crud. I should’ve saved these onto my hard drive. Wanted to watch them again and now I must wait. Definitely would like to see a screening of this somewhere in my area, but I’m sure it’ll get around on DVD or if I am lucky HD on the xbox live marketplace.

By: Lilian

Lilian — Fri, 25 May 2007 04:50:31 +0000

The mini-interview posted here is so inspiring. I remember wanting to contribute something to society by using what I know to do best–design—back at college. five years into the practice and that sort of slips under–apart from a few love-jobs for arts festival and the like back in good old Melbourne..But VIsual Essays..indeed, is something to be excited about. It’s like Design History, but prettier, and doesn’t make you fall asleep. Big thumbs up for Simon…keep on rockin, mate!

By: KGB

KGB — Thu, 24 May 2007 19:05:33 +0000

Damn…thanx for the detailed post!
Good info right there.

By: Simon Robson

Simon Robson — Thu, 24 May 2007 17:37:40 +0000

Thanks KGB,
I’ve always liked to think so ;)
we started in production right at the beginning of February. We started with 3 illustrators creating work for 3 of the sections. They each worked for a week to two weeks and produced a huge amount of work which was almost all used. Then each section was taken on by one lead animator / compositor who had 5 weeks to complete their section. In reality it became much more of an organic process with support dropping in and out of production as time and people dictated. What I mean by this is that although there was one lead animator on each section, they could find themselves supported by any number of people doign 2D and 3D depending on the day, depending on who was free. Nexus were incredibly giving to the project and their generosity was truely humbling. As for me, i cut my time between storyboarding, designing, re-designing, and helping with animating and compositing where and whenever i could. I wasn’t able to ‘own’ any section as i had to keep an eye on everything. I was director / odd job man!
The fourth section; ‘surveillance’, was totally owned by Cassiano Prado and Mario Sader. They took my boards, and produced design and animation. They worked remotely and i directed them from Nexus.
We finished animation mid-April and then finished the sections in Flame at Absolute post in Soho, who also gave enormously generously to the project. They added detail to certain sections and looked after the overall grade of three out of the four pieces. We delivered around 17th April. So all in all it was 10-11 weeks of mayhem and late nights. But isn’t everything in this industry?

By: Joe Clay

Joe Clay — Thu, 24 May 2007 16:57:32 +0000

Incredible and incredibly relevant. Excellent color palette as is mentioned. As far as politics and mograph goes, art has always been at the support of and counter to politics. If there is no counter, as this piece provides, no one will realize that we are losing liberty.

To put it plainly, a schematic drawing helps to illustrate what’s going on in a particular piece of machinery. This illustration helps to clearly show what has happened and will continue to happen to our basic rightsâ€”rights that were once untouchable.

By: KGB

KGB — Thu, 24 May 2007 16:56:43 +0000

I don’t know about Simon’s work…but he’s pretty hot!

jk jk :)

Seriously though…great stuff Simon.
Its good to see great skills used to convey an important message.
I like the cleverness of the visuals, and the these really capture the essence of the Barry piece that made it one of my favorites.

Out of curiosity how long did it take you to create the whole thing?

By: rex crowle

rex crowle — Thu, 24 May 2007 13:23:54 +0000

Superb work Simon. So many clever transitions and such attention to detail.

And you still manage to find time to come up with new puns based on my name everyday..

By: monovich

monovich — Wed, 23 May 2007 22:47:01 +0000

so fluid and clever. nice stuff, and meaningful to boot.

By: John

John — Wed, 23 May 2007 22:10:39 +0000

All of it is brilliant, but the highlight for me was the intricate ideas like the footsteps at the end of “Surveillance” that turn into one foot and two crutch impacts when the narrator mentions “medical”

I also admire Simon’s sense of social responsibility that we as mographers should all hold.

By: alexcarv

alexcarv — Wed, 23 May 2007 17:47:24 +0000

Nice one Simon.
Keep feeding us with good inspiration!
Talk soon – alex