All is Full of Love

Artist:  Bjork

Director:  Chris Cunningham

This controversial video clip displays the affection between two female robots. As with great works, the opinions are always divided into two contradictory sides: those who admire it, and those who don't. The later are repulsed by the impression of lesbian sex in this work and find it as cheap trickery of using sex to gain attention.

But if we consider the artist herself, Bjork, a figure who is quite controversial herself, this video clip somehow suits her perfectly. Her vocal, her music, are anything but common.

Observing the lyrics in this song, it is all about love. It's a weird love song, with slow tempo and beautiful composition. The visual blends perfectly with the concept of the song, in terms that it virtually speaks about universality in love. As quoted in the lyric "you'll be given love, you just have to trust it." By using robots character, Chris Cunningham delivers the message that love can be found anywhere (even in a cold being such as robot), if only we are able to trust it.

The high quality of craftsmanship resulted in mesmerizing visual, as always with Cunningham's work. Slow movement all through the clip flows nicely with the beat and the enunciation of lyrics. The cut in editing is timed to the beat, the visual effect is very smooth, and the angles are beautiful. 

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LG Something Lurking Commercial

As commercial goes, this quite long ad from LG electronic is very different from our common electronic ad.

For one thing, it has the duration of 1 minute 14 seconds, which is quite long for an ad. Second, it is actually more like a mini classic horror movie than a tv commercial (at least in the beginning).

The core concept of the ad is to high light the danger of fine dust particles in what we usually feel as a safe environment, in this case our own home. Instead of using real human as actors/actress, the designers chose to use all kinds of toys to bring the story to life. There are Barbie-like dolls, soldier toys, teddy bear, and other kind of toys. Curiously, the different type of toys did not cause disharmony in the visual. On contrary, it has an interesting effect as if we’re watching a surreal world where anything comes to life.

The dramatic effect built on the tension between stationery and moving objects: the characters are motionless, they just sit (or stand) there just as toys would, but around them there are menacingly moving objects in the form of shark’s fin and flying dusts. And then the story moves on by animating the camera view. What adds more to the suspense is the fact that although the toys are not moving, their expression changed. Surprise, ignorance or fear, clearly projected with the help of CG technology.

Images from www.psyop.tv/

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A Wonderful Eye-candy

I watched Rango in cinema several months ago. It was a beautiful eye-candy movie. The audience was  pampered with amazing visuals and countless illustration wonders all through the movie, right until the closing credits.

First thing that hit my head was the strong visual concept behind all of the illustrations, and how it went smoothly with the story. The story comes breathed life into the illustration, and the illustration added depth to the story. Their approach in using 'rough' looks combined with subdued colors conveyed the grim mood of the movie.

The characters themselves were nothing close to fairy tale-beauty, but in their 'ugly' appearance we can see the unique characteristics. Some of their features were a little contorted, body-proportion a bit twisted, and since most of them belong to reptile family in the animal kingdom, they are fitted with tough-scaly attributes. But here we can find the evidence of extensive research behind these characters. Obviously, the designers have vigorously studied the natural behavior of the real animals, then mould and tweak it to be a unique character. Along with these inherited-behavior, comes the distinctive visual features that make them highly amusing and at the same time thoroughly believable.

In the end credit section, I totally enjoyed the way the 2D animation play out in the relationship with the music. Keeping its wild west grim outlook, the scenes are decorated with dark silhouettes and splashes of rough patterns. We are presented with some high details of the characters here: a close snapshot of their eyes, face, body parts, all painted in 2D illustration. I found it highly exhilarating, and of course, totally envious.

As been discussed earlier in our first project, one of the important qualities of a good video is continuity. I believe this part of Rango is one of perfect examples for that. The continuity runs not only in terms of motions, but also the graphic appearance: lines, colors, shading, typography, all elements. To me, that is the most outstanding achievements in this short section of Rango.

Image from prologue.com

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Painted Veil Opening Credit

Subtle colors and melodious score, intricate pattern and worn out images, are the main 'weapon' in Painted Veil's opening credit. The slow pace of the entire sequence combines with soft-edge images moving in a delicate arrangement emanates a classic and romantic feeling, which was indeed the setting of the movie. This impression is bolstered with the whole layout, which mainly plays out in conservative tone with serif fonts and central alignment.

Taking a closer look at the forms fading in and out during this sequence gives us a stronger taste of the movie. There are old ships, flowers (real flower and illustrated ones), chinese embroidery and trickles of water; represents beauty of time long past.

But not all parts of the opening credit is 'classic'. Look at the treatment of the flowers, for example. The fact that the flower is blooming in reverse direction gives an indication of something quirky, perhaps the audience can expect something a bit unusual in this classic movie.  A twist in the characters, or unexpected turn of events in the plot, maybe.

Towards half of the sequence, the visual is taken over by ancient photos and clips of old movies, with a suddenly quicker pace. This subtle treatment gives a good change in the visual plot and recaptures the attention, to last until the opening part is finish.

Image from prologue.com

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Zathura Movie Trailer

Have you ever watched Zathura the movie? It was meant to be a sequel to Jumanji, a fantasy-genre movie which was a great success in the '90s. But Zathura tragically lacked the magic Jumanji has, due to weak plot and characters. The story, in a nutshell, was about two boys who were accidentally trapped in magical board game that sent them to imaginary outer space. Could be interesting, but it fell short and failed to engage the audience.

However, the trailer was surprisingly wonderful. The visuals were based on the old graphics on the game board itself. Displayed as an old game, the drawings on the game board's surface is badly scratched in some places, the color is a bit off, with all the hallmarks of an old skool comic.

And there is where the beauty lies. The trailer makes use of this beautiful drawing, animate them and combines them with actual clip of the movie. Interestingly, although the color of the graphic is a bit off, it blends nicely with the movie snapshot. It effectively portray the imaginary outer-space world in the mind of young boys around 8-12 years.

One interesting technique they used here that I think would be really helpful for any motion-graphic student is the way they chopped up the outer space graphic elements, and animate it separately, to create the illusion of depth in a 2D world. There are rockets, planets, clouds, smokes and of course texts, moving around in a synchronized choreography.

As a person who watched the movie first and then the trailer, I was pleasantly surprised by the trailer. But for those who watched the movie because they've watched the trailer first, they would have expected a really cool movie. It was a good display of how designers could build up something very engaging and thus entice the public to run to cinemas. However the movie turned out, it just goes to show the power of visual manipulation. A very good work at that.

Image from prologue.com

 Watch video here