The 2020 edition of the Playgrounds media and design festival launched today in its COVID-induced online form with these stop motion titles created at home over Zoom by the crew of Amsterdam prodco The Panics.
Dancing on the Edge of a Volcano by Found Studio
A visual campaign for the London Symphony Orchestra’s with music from Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring.
Superunion collaborated with Found Studio and dancer Ella Robson Guilfoyle to create a dramatic, explosive and tension-fuelled live action film that captures the volatility of the period.
The Morning Show, Titles by Angus Wall and Hazel Baird
From Elastic: “The core idea centers around spheres and chaos. Obviously there are influences like Paul Rand and Saul Bass but we worked hard to create something a little unique. The result is a sequence that was very graphical, clean, fun and a bit different from our usual work.”
Heat by C A T K
The latest 3D exploration from the team at C A T K (Colors And The Kids) in Berlin is a five-minute, data-driven opus of melting abstraction that “seeks the beauty and artistic potential in the algorithmic recreation of real-life occurrences.”
Twenty Four by Nils Völker
From turning garbage bags into huge, breathing organisms, to making meditative wall installations out of frisbees, Nils Völker has dedicated his career to finding the beauty in mundane, household items.
Twenty Four is a site–specific installation. 24 light-blue plastic bags guide the spectator through the monumental nave of the deconsecrated church Saint-Nicolas in Caen. (France)
Wolfwalkers by Cartoon Saloon
Wolfwalkers is a 2020 animated fantasy adventure film directed by Tomm Moore and Ross Stewart. The film is the third installment in Moore’s “Irish Folklore Trilogy”, following his previous films The Secret of Kells (2009) and Song of the Sea (2014).
Behind the Scenes
Carnivàle Title Sequence by Angus Wall
The camera transports the viewer inside the Tarot cards through 3-dimensional interpretations of those works of art, that transition almost seemlessly into a sequence of clips taken from historical films. Each card represents a different element of Carnivàle’s ambiguous storyline. So, both visually and in terms of its meaning, this is a multi-layered opening sequence. Angus Wall points explains the meaning behind each scene in detail on the show’s website, which features a special section devoted to the making of the opening sequence.
Modular by Ash Thorp
Design and motion renaissance man Ash Thorp just released a new three-minute abstract piece for YouTube he describes as “an experiment in two-dimensional design, showcasing an intrinsic depiction of science and technology.”
Gattaca title sequence by Michael Riley
A monotone colour palette – a subtle integration of sans-serf and serif capitals falling in and out of focus – a microscopic viewpoint of trimmed pieces of fingernail falling to the surface followed by hair follicles – sprinkled skin flakes reminding us of snow – then finally a mournful symphonic interlude courtesy of Michael Nyman all add up to what is considered a close-to-perfect title sequence for the extraordinary film Gattaca.
Title Designer and Creative Director of Shine design studio, Michael Riley
ALQUIMIA Animated Type by Pavel Paratov
Type Design: Luis Migel Torres
Sound Design: Satoshi Yoshitake
Motion Design: Pavel Paratov, Art Director and Senior Motion Designer at silasveta.com
American Carnage by Antibody
Motion masters Patrick Clair and Raoul Marks at Antibody make the case for a dark near-future in the US with this speculative explainer positing a civil breakdown in the aftermath of the 2020 election.
LOVE DEATH + ROBOTS by David Fincher and Tim Miller
LOVE DEATH + ROBOTS is an American adult animated anthology web television series on Netflix. The 18-episode first season was released on March 15, 2019. The series is produced by Tim Miller, Joshua Donen, David Fincher and Jennifer Miller.Each episode was animated by different crews from a range of countries. The series is a re-imagining of Fincher and Miller’s long in-development reboot of the 1981 animated science fiction film Heavy Metal.
Tocatta by Optical Arts
Gravity and Bach Collide. London’s Optical Arts keeps the exploratory spirit alive with this live-action ballet of poetic destruction shot at extremely high speeds (between 1000 and 5000 frames per second).
From Optical Arts: “The film is an exploration of the nature of time, the relentless violence of entropy and creative energy, and its relationship to music itself”.
Bach by Stephen Malinowski
Stephen Anthony Malinowski is an American composer, pianist, educator, software engineer, and inventor.
He is best known for his musical animations and his computer program ‘the Music Animation Machine’ which produces animated graphical scores. He visualizes music using a system of colored shapes, taking information from a MIDI file. He has collaborated with artists such as Vincent Lo, Alexander Peskanov, Björk, and the Del Sol Quartet.
Music: Concerto in D Minor for Two Violins, J. S. Bach, 2nd movement, Largo ma non tanto played by by Lara St. John and Scott St. John with the New York Bach Ensemble.
Life After Coming Out by CNN Motion
Mark Tedesco joined a seminary in Rome when he was a teenager. Halfway through his education, he began to confront feelings he’d had for much of his life — feelings he wasn’t sure how to reconcile with his faith.
Art director Ignacio Osorio and the team at CNN Motion apply a gentle, compassionate touch to the story of Mark Tedesco, a young priest trying to reconcile his faith and sexuality in the latest episode of CNN’s “Life After” series.