Joyrider: Sun-Rype “Swing”

For their first joint project, Joyrider Films’ Wade Shotter and Andras Ketzer created “Swing,” a faux stop-motion spot for Sun-Rype. Independently, Wade and Andras’ work is full of inventive, idiosyncratic imagemaking. Together, they have a chemistry that will hopefully bear even more fruit (sorry, I could resist) in the future.

Building on the aesthetics of Wade’s Fujiya Miyaki “Ankle Injury” music video, “Swing” creates the look of stop-motion using a CG approach. A little inside info from Joyrider Films, where all the CG was created:

It was meant to feel more like stop frame but because of the very complicated nature of the various images, we went down a CG route. A lot of the live action is rotoscoped images that we shot, then blocked out and then all the particle animation work was built and animated.

To convince the client that they could indeed pull of this feat of technical wizardry, Joyrider created a couple test films.

Test One | Test Two

The effect is mesmerizing. I think the fact that it’s not “real” stop-motion makes it even more entertaining. It’s a simulacrum of a simulacrum, a hall of mirrors in which the original referrant is identifiable but not easily located. Yes, there’s a girl on a swing, but she’s put through a visual blender: rotoscoped, then interpreted as particles in the form of fruit (which in themselves are merely a CG reference to real fruit), all of which is then finessed to look like stop motion.

Credits

About the author

Justin Cone

/ justincone.com
Together with Carlos El Asmar, Justin co-founded Motionographer, F5 and The Motion Awards. He currently lives in Austin, Texas with is wife, son and fluffball of a dog. Before taking on Motionographer full-time, Justin worked in various capacities at Psyop, NBC-Universal, Apple, Adobe and SCAD.

5 Comments

boca

Simulacrum of a simulacrum indeed. Not too fond of the flickering on the pack shot, was that cg as well or real stop-motion? Just seems a little out of place. Amazing piece nevertheless!

the doctor

Ideologically, I see something wrong in mimicking stopmo with 3d. The charm of stopmo is that it is a tactile in-camera effort…not getting your hands dirty with real objects defeats the point.

Yot

I don’t have any ideological issues with this piece. Yep, a good use of simulacrum for the high art nerds, next we can discus if this should be displayed in a gallery as installation art or post-modern mash-up.

The spot is clever in its use of copies of the real. I enjoyed the happy fruity goodness and summer time euphoria.

What I do have issues with is the actual style. With all the roto work and 3D that was involved I would have liked to see something a bit more dynamic. The envelope can totally be pushed when you escape the restrictions (but alas not the happy accidents) of good ol’ stop motion. Not long ago there was a great stop motion project using vegetables (some one can post the link if it they remember what the hell I’m talking about). The vegi-spot seemed to use a lot of stop motion, and it was executed marvellously. I feel this spot just missed its mark.

boca

Hey Yot, I think you might be talking about the weight watcher’s spot by Hornet Inc’s Peter Sluzka (https://hornetinc.com/index.php?site=2&sub=1&project=391#), there’s a nice stop-motion veggie animation half way through…
Cheers

v.shergill

I know it’s spelled like it on here and on the website, but i’m almost postive the bands name (Fujiya Miyaki), at least here in the states is Fujiya & Miyagi.

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