The folks over at Everynone just released a new addition to their series of shorts in collaboration with NPR & WNYC’s Radiolab – an evocative interpretation of communication which explores the role that language plays in our perception and understanding of the world: WORDS.
As a “bonus video” to reflect Radiolab’s recent subject matter of the same title, Everynone composed an extremely heartfelt visual array…a menagerie of everyday snapshots reflecting the human condition, presented symbiotically through masterful editing and an empathetic score. Each image runs beautifully into one another creating a warm lyricism that not only pays tribute to the minutia of our daily lives, but weaves together a story that represents our society as a whole, tangential only through our assigned definitions of each part.
Everynone was kind enough to elaborate on their process:
“Our friends at Radiolab were making a show about ‘words’, and they wanted us to make a companion video. Upon hearing that the subject for the show would be ‘words’, we immediately thought of the big books, the dictionary and thesaurus. From there, we decided that we’d make some sort of visualizations of these books. Pretty early on, we knew it’d play quite like a game, you could call it a “game-film”. Starting with “play”, we simultaneously created and connected the dots, back and forth between dictionary and thesaurus.
It took a good week to write the piece out, and about a month to shoot and edit. There were a fair amount of changes along the way, but the entire piece existed, for the most part, on paper. Of course, when working in a realm of “planned non-fiction”, there are surprises everywhere. Every person in the piece is a non-actor. We made lots of phone calls and pulled tons of strangers off the street to get the subjects and actions we wanted.
To keep the whole flow fresh, we played with the detail and branches of the word associations, and the transitions between words became our glue.
It was a new way to approach the filmmaking process, and it made the whole thing fun and exciting. If you listen to Radiolab, you’ll find that sort of curiousity and positive energy is gushing, so it was a breeze for us to play with it.”
Lastly, as you all probably know by now, Radiolab is awesome. Jad Abumrad & Robert Krulwich (and team) consistently create a beautiful musicality of scientific exploration, unique sound design, and affable storytelling – a program more lucid than most visual media, in my opinion – and their latest presentation doesn’t miss a beat. It’s an exploration into the role that structured language plays into our perception of ourselves and the world around us. Be sure to check out Radiolab’s Words following Everynone’s kickass supplement.
From London-based This is Real Art comes a project that hits all my soft spots: space tech, information graphics, and a reserved, modern design aesthetic.
TiRA created a collection of seven documentary films for Astra – one of the world’s largest satellite operator’s, in concert (but not in direct relation) with the development and planned launch of their largest and most advanced satellite, Astra 3B – to be used for education and marketing. The films describe everything one needs to know about the operation of a satellite: History, Physics, Control, Launch, Why We Need Satellites, Business, and The Future.
Astra is a heavyweight in providing communications to major European markets – from radio and broadcast to broadband and 3D technologies. Thus, with society’s ever-increasing reliance on these services (i.e. broadband, 3D) and Astra’s continued growth into emerging markets, it’s no surprise to see this type of subject given this much care.
As partner and Creative Director at This is Real Art, Paul Belford has proven to be a force in the advertising world – harkening the likes of Rand, Krone or Glaser – and it shows once again in his directorial role for this project. Reflecting seemingly innate refined design sensibilities, Paul takes a technically astronomic and thus potentially mind-numbing subject and whittles it down into a form that’s both translucently and attractively explicated – a presentation that would make Edward Tufte proud.
Motionographer was able to catch up with Paul at This Is Real Art for a more detailed look into the process. Read more.
The Matter Fisher is the latest short from Dave Prosser, a recent graduate from the animation department at the RCA, is hitting the festival circuit now. We’ll be sharing the full version soon.