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Monday, 27 February 2006 | Levent OZLER
Hilton Tennant Directs Animated Short Film
for Panasonic's Capture the Motion II
Hilton Tennant Directs Animated Short Film for Panasonic's"Capture the Motion II"
Five International Directors Tapped to Create Shorts Inspired by the 2006 Winter Olympics in Torino, Italy
South African director Hilton Tennant, who recently joined The Ebeling Group (TEG) roster, has teamed with Panasonic on the "Capture the Motion II" short film project. RES Magazine and Tokyo-based media company Nowonmedia were commissioned to handpick five director-designers from five continents to create short films inspired by "The Glory of Sports" and the Torino 2006 Olympic Winter Games. Hilton Tennant's film, entitled "The Little Battle," can be viewed at http://panasonic.co.jp/olympic/ along with the shorts of Qian Qian (China), Rumpus Room (Oceania), Honest (USA), and Gabriel Malaprade (Europe).
RES and Nowonmedia contacted The Ebeling Group to participate in the Panasonic project after working with TEG director Lobo on the Athens 2004 Summer Olympics "Capture the Motion." This year, the creative brief had two mandates: to give the films a humorous twist, and to capture the spirit of the Winter Olympics, without using obvious iconography or symbols associated with the games.
The moral of Hilton Tennant's film, "The Little Battle," is that in order to succeed, an athlete needs to face his or her fears; never giving up even if he or she fails. The short stars an unusual anti-hero, purple in complexion, with alien features. The opening scene has him trudging in the snow atop a mountain on rudimentary skis. Peering over the edge, his fear momentarily consumes him and he withdraws into a humorously sinister imaginary world.
But his determination quickly overcomes the voices of doubt. Vitalized and motivated, he goes into "battle mode" japanimé style, and becomes a super ski heroŠalmost. This enables him to get down the slope, but once he lands, he realizes he's right back where he started atop what's actually a very small hill. It's the classic Sisyphus story, but with a twist.
"Our film was inspired by eastern pop culture as well as my homeland," said Tennant. "The characters definitely owe themselves to the Japanese phenomenon of Śkawaii,' or cuteness, but we added an African quality, which is evident in the film's organic patterns and textures. There's an international feel to this piece, which is exactly what we were going for to mark the occasion of the Olympics."
The hardware/software package used on "The Little Battle" consisted of SOFTIMAGE|XSI and Zbrush on PC for 3D modeling; Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe After Effects and Maxon Cinema 4D on Apple G5s to create the character designs, compositing, 3D backgrounds and grading. TEG and Tennant worked very closely with Johannesburg-based Sphere Animation Studio to oversee a production and animation team.
About The Ebeling Group
The Ebeling Group (TEG) is an international production company with offices in Los Angeles, New York, Sao Paulo and Tokyo. The TEG roster includes world-renowned designers and directors MK12, Nakd, Lobo, LBA, Caviar, Convert and Caskey. These companies have been awarded with distinctions from The Art Director's Club, BDA, The Clios and The One Show among others. TEG projects‹and directors‹are anything but ordinary. Internationally recognized short films, commercials, promos and music videos for clients including Adidas, Coca-Cola, Diesel, Levi's, TNT, MTV, Nike and Ford have garnered accolades from the global design, production and advertising industry. TEG directors' work has been showcased at Resfest, OFFF, FITC, onedotzero, Sundance Film Festival and the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain.
The Ebeling Group: http://www.dexigner.com/directory/detail/7264/
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