For those of you who attended F5 last April, you know that our speakers were a diverse and inspiring mix of creative people from a wide spectrum of fields. As promised, we’re sharing those talks with the world, starting with Simon Robson and Tim Rayner’s presentation about their collaborative project, The Coalition of the Willing.
Although Simon and Tim weren’t the first speakers of our two-day event, we’re sharing their talk first for two reasons. 1) We believe in their cause, and 2) They need your support.
I asked Simon to tell us about his experience of F5:
Talking at F5 was a real pleasure. It gave Tim and I the chance to introduce the project we are currently developing, entitled ‘Coalition of The Willing’. It also gave us a deadline for which to prepare enough material to give the audience a good idea of what the project is all about. In short, F5 gave us a shot in the arm.
I won’t go too much into what ‘Coalition’ is about here, Tim does a fantastic job in the presentation of distilling the thinking and ideas behind the project. Suffice it to say that it’s a film that suggests a collaborative, technological way of combating climate change.
The film is also being made in a collaborative way. In the presentation, I talk about artists who became involved prior to F5. Since F5, Loyalkaspar, Parasol Island and World Leaders have all begun creating sections for the film. I’m thrilled and excited by the good will and the caliber of the artists who’ve thrown themselves into this project.
We plan to give the film a staggered online release, starting by publishing the written argument online and then fleshing this out with shots as and when they are completed. It’s an idea that Tim and I have been developing with Chris O’Reilly from Nexus Productions.
Following up on his poetic short film “Seeking You,” director Jean-Julien Pous recently released a new music video for Gedda Headz’ (MySpace) first single, “Spaced Out.”
Like the track, the visuals are a wild blend of analogue and digital. Shot in Hong Kong, because, says Pous, “it’s futuristic and intense, like an Asian Neverland,” the video is a tripped out journey through pop culture and video games shot beautifully by cinematographer Keidrych Wasley.
The video bites off a lot—aside from directing a dozen or so actors and coordinating their stunts with George Jackson, Pous packed his project to the gills with ambitious camera work, including a helicopter shoot. But the production never feels overwrought or Michael Baysian. It just feels fun.
With excellent character design like this, it looks as though Gedda Heads might be following in the footsteps of Gorillaz, channeling their music through their new alter egos. That’d be fine with me. It’d give them a good excuse to hire Jean-Julien Pous again.
When Mass Animation announced their goal of creating a CG short film by “crowd-sourcing” the animation to a global community of thousands of animators, I had two initial reactions:
1) They’ll never pull it off, and 2) They shouldn’t pull it off.
Last Wednesday, the New York Times proved me wrong on the first count. Mass Animation’s five-minute short, “Live Music,” (trailer) will open for TriStar Pictures’ feature-length animated film “Planet 51″ on November 20th.
But my second charge—the ethical one—is still in tact.
Swedish Animation Studio Fido flexes their muscles to animate this story about building the sustainable future for RWE. Together with German agency Jung von Matt, they developed the main character and and the story of being big and proud of it.
“The challenge was to create a character that is not a creature that people fear nor a human being” says Jens Pfau from JVM. The biggest challenges in the four-month production time were the facial expessions, skin and hair of the character and to define that “special edge that makes the world magical.”
Originally conceived as an in-house corporate video, the clip will premier in German cinemas to mark the launch of the new Harry Potter film. “If people like him, he might have a long future, doing some good deeds.”
Each year, 20 video artists create 20 wild, whimsical, and unconventional machines that solve environmental issues. These videos reject the status quo, explore crazy ideas, and blast beyond boundaries.
Head over to the CYW 20/20 page for full credits and more info on Mainframe’s project, along with all the other films released so far.
What can you say about this title sequence that will do it justice? There is so much beauty in its stop-motion bizarreness. Having said that, I wouldn’t expect anything less from acclaimed Japanese director of horror and strangeness, Takashi Miike. All I can suggest is that you let go of regular conventions, take a look and get ready for a roller-coaster ride!
On a side note, if you have a spare weekend, rent out some of Miike’s movies, in particular Audition, and my personal favourite, Ichi the Killer (in which the titles involve various male-only fluids!).
I gotta be honest, the real reason I was first attracted to Mesai’s “Alarm,” was for its beautifully soft lighting and rendering. On second pass, I noticed some of subtle character animation. But the story, I felt, dragged.
After talking it over with fellow Motionographer Greg Herman, though, I realized that was exactly the point. We’re pulled into this world where everything is punctuated by alarms, where every moment of stillness is just a preamble to the spine-wrenching squeal of a bell. Thus, the near real-time toaster sequence feels excruciatingly slow, the long ride in the elevator feels like a devilish trick.
Watching it a third time with this in mind, I found myself grinning wildly, enjoying the entire experience immensely.
You can download a 720p version of the film from Mesai, the animation partnership of Moohyun Jang and Jungoo Choo that created “Alarm.” You’ll also find some pre-production stills and a bevvy of test renders in the Alarm Introduction area of the site.
Back in 2007, as students at the Savannah College of Art and Design, William Campbell teamed up with Anh Vu to create The Lemon Tree, an experimental short film that went on to win awards and launch Will and Anh’s careers with a bang. (Anh graduated to work with Psyop as a staff designer, while Will went to work with Superfad in LA.)
Will’s latest short film, The Nature Between Us, is a surreal tale of personal relationships told in a style that is uniquely his own. The film premiered at Sundance 2009 and screened at SXSW 2009, charming audiences with its mysterious narrative and off-beat bubble gum visuals.
Will and producer Jett Steiger graciously took some time to answer our questions about the project. Read on…
Universal Everything’s recent refresh for MTV’s 64 international channels is notable for what it DOES NOT do. As opposed to MTV’s long-standing tradition of constantly reinventing and playing with it’s logo, this time the logo itself appears only at the end – in black and white – and is not stylized or customized at all. The refresh also introduces a flexible new navigation system with onscreen graphic information about current or upcoming programs as well as a secondary set of messages on the lower third of the screen. As usual with projects from Universal Everything, the work is a blend of the maximal and the minimal, very graphic, very pop and very up-to-date.
Allow me to introduce the work of Philippe Grammaticopoulos, a French director working with the somewhat mysterious production company Mr. Hyde in Paris. Philippe has also somehow managed to evade the Motionographer radar until now, which comes as a massive shock to me after seeing the long list of his wonderful animations. His stylistic approach and animation techniques are truly unique, but for me his off-beat, strange storytelling is what makes him stand apart from the rest.
His newest animation, Les Ventres (”The Bellies”) caught our attention when it hit our inboxes last week. Take a look at this bizarre four minute tail four minute clip from the 18 minute short about snails, glut and self-consumption.
Seeing how we missed out on all the great work the this fine director has released over the years, here’s more of his work, all of which is worth viewing. In fact, any of these could be full posts of their own.
Going back to school in style, Mexico City studio Cru De Ladies and BBDO México put their heads together by designing a neighborhood built of notebook paper in Scribe Mundo De Pape.
Directed by Marc Colucci, Lemonade is a documentary that examines several of the 70,000 advertising professionals who have lost their jobs in the economic recession, and as a result, found their true calling.
Assembled by Dutch graphic designer, Christian Annyas, The Movie Title Stills Collection is a comprehensive library of single still images that are representative of main title sequences from the 1920’s – 2000’s.
Created for (and rejected by) MTV Movie Awards. This slice of genius was made by LA duo Fatal Farm (who also animated the recent Major Lazer video). MTV *NEEDS* stuff like this!
Joining forces with UK Production Company Blink Ink and Agency CHI, Noah Harris directs Talk Talk. The light-writing concept is tired, but the spot’s worthy of praise for its execution.
Photo by 
