Saturday, December 15, 2007

EUROPRIX Multimedia Top Talent Award 2008 (8)

Category: Digital Video & Animations

The category Digital Video & Animations looks for serial stories and new virtual worlds using digital technologies in innovative ways. Digital Video & Animations is a favourite category as is clear from the number of entries: 68 entries from 16 countries. From the overwhelming number of entries three nominees were selected:
- Life-Line
- Lovelines
- The Big Brother State.
The winner in this category is Life-Line.

Title: Life Line
Producer: Tomek Ducki (Hungary)
URL: http://www.tomekducki.com/
Life Line is an animation film that visualises how the decisions people make influence their journey through life. Playing on the theme of a boy-meets-girl story, the paths of the characters in this tragic love story almost cross but they never meet. This digital animation uses two visual metaphors that show two characters learning the hard way the ropes as well as the nuts and bolts of modern, industrial life. A bunch of cogs and wheels turn into two human-like figures who might be two potential lovers skating along weaving paths. As they skate across straight lines that slice up and down the white screen. The sense of space in 2D creates room for interpretation. Viewers are asked to consider the consequences of the paths these characters choose.

With the recent generation of computerised animation flooding our screens, Life-Line creates a magic world through its highly skilled animation technique and beautifully rendered graphics. These few minutes remind us of our own fragility but they also remind us of the beauty and creativity that true artists can bring to us through the screen. Its poetry not only draws on the mechanic imagery of cogs and wheels on thin and fragile paths, but also on the lines of life that look so very familiar. These might be the very same lines that lead us to glide and dance, to fall and fail.

Title: Lovelines
Producer: Max Brandl, Yusuke Akamatsu (Austria)
Media format: Digital video
Lovelines visualises a love story within a song. The tale has a unifying melody but is composed of two parts – one representing him, the other representing her. “He” is the bass line; “she” the treble as played on an acoustic guitar. The combination of the bass and treble represents the union of music and the relationship itself. The music quickly weaves together as their relationship develops into a colourful, rich and unified song. One moment the music is impulsive, the next it is melancholy - which is then related to the visuals of this animation and to the twists and turns of their relationship.

In a world of commerce, traffic and conflict, Lovelines is a tale that magnificently captures the beauty of growing up and falling in love. It ignites the viewer’s memories of cherished moments in their own life. The storyline can be immediately appreciated by the viewer. Lovelines captures the sensitive and affectionate side of anyone since the theme is universal – falling in love. Finding new ways to express such universal experiences is a creative feat in itself.

Title: The Big Brother State
Producer: David Scharf, Johannes Berner (Germany)
Media format: DVD Pal
In protest to the increasing amounts of supervision of our personal lives by Closed Circuit TV, data collection and phone tapping, The Big Brother State is the modern digital equivalent of a political pamphlet. The flash-based documentary-style animation presents blacked out city structures and traced outlines of people contrasting them with funky urban graphics of the communication network people live in. Viewers are placed in the role of surprised home-owners, flashing a torchlight on their own home, only to find out that they have been ‘bugged’ by the state. The animation raises the question –is everybody who uses communication networks also a suspect in a police state?

The Big Brother State is an outstanding example of the way young talents can independently make a complete film production by themselves. Acting as the scriptwriter, designer, animator, composer and editor, the producer has proven that new media change the old media. The tools of techno-culture can act as a weapon and this film shows its audience how dangerous technical solutions might be since they can be used to compromise the right to privacy.

Blog Posting Number: 951

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