Hasta La Motion!

A group of talented Supinfocom Arles graduates have released their 2012 thesis film, “Contre temps.” Chock full of gorgeous shots, the film is set in a surreally beautiful world besieged by a cycle of flooding that threatens the lives of a father and daughter on a daily basis.

The story feels like a sketch of something much grander, something I’d love to see developed further. It’s worth watching for its lush art direction alone, though.

Official site

Tip of the hat to Ash Thorp.

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Between Bears, created by Eran Hilleli at Bezalel Academy of Art and Design in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, is a film beyond its years as a student piece and occupies a distinctive place in the spectrum of contemporary, short subject animation.

Unto itself, nearly every frame is a moving illustration. The style of the piece reduces forms to a graphical simplicity, making the visual language of the film both graceful and crude. As your eyes waft over a succession of thoughtfully composed landscapes, negative space helps to establish a vivid sense of solitary amongst the characters—sequestered, but coming to terms with a world in surrounding desolation.

Together, through a muted palette of analogous colors, the graphical beauty of the film—for some—may pull ahead of the equally abstract, yet solemn narrative, but comparatively, while the literal message of the piece may be open for interpretation, the bleak transgression of visuals paint a stark reality.

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A while back, we made a post about the Bonaroo line-up animation, the basic concept of which was taken from Javan Ivey’s My Paper Mind. Despite not being involved with the Bonaroo project, Javan was honored to have his work sampled and taken further. In his words: “It looks great. I mean, I’m kinda bummed I wasn’t invited to the party, but I really enjoy seeing what they’ve done.”

The ensuing Motionographer comments raised questions about involving the originators of a particular technique in commercial applications of that technique. People wondered why Javan wasn’t brought on as a collaborator or consultant by Ghost Robot (who had, it turns out, contacted Javan about the Bonaroo project).

Acting as a model for how things can be done differently is the opening sequence for the Promax|BDA Awards created by Favorite Color.

A couple days before the awards opening was released, we saw an engaging experimental film created by Parson’s student Varathit “Tu” Uthaisri. Surface bore an uncanny resemblance to the Favorite Color project, and the inevitable cries of “rip-off” came from some of us here at Motionographer HQ (me included).

But then we looked closer, and we discovered that Tu was actually listed as an art director on the Favorite Color project.

That intrigued me, so I asked Favorite Color Founder/Executive Producer Dave Dimmick about it:

Frank [Pichel, Creative Director] went to a screening of Tu’s thesis at Parson’s right around the same time we were asked to do the Promax/BDA opening.  With the Promax/BDA theme this year being “leading the new economy of marketing and design,” we thought it might be a cool idea to do something metaphoric to how we interpreted that theme.

Our thought was that we could create a metaphor for the economy, where things are not exactly as they appear.  We thought Tu’s Surface film was the perfect concept for us to build from.

So they got Tu involved as a freelance art director. As simple as that. They brought him out to the shoot in upstate New York, and Tu helped set up scenes, working closely with Frank Pichel to achieve the right look.

But it gets better. Tu’s Surface was obviously inspired by other projects that came before it, as he clearly states in the Process area of his site, going so far as to link to the relevant works. His openness about his influences imbues him with a sense of confidence and integrity, setting a fine example for students and studios alike to follow.

Now, if we could just get advertising agencies on the same page…

Posted on Motionographer