WINNER
Offf Dach Title Film
by Carbon, for Offf
Offf is a festival of creativity, art and digital design, which in 2021 was held in Vienna. It’s a meeting point for all talents to unite, get inspired and collaborate, and each year the festival has a theme. The theme for 2021 was ‘Misfits’ and this single word was the brief given to the team at creative production studio Carbon when they were asked to create the Title Film for the festival.
With such an open brief, they knew they had an opportunity to go wild with their idea and eventually came up with ‘Repeater’, an animated tale of non-conformity, rejection and the uplifting power of finding your place. Directed by Carbon’s Ian Bradley, the film is set in a fictional world inhabited by creatures who speak in symbols. The world’s ruling class, Sayers, forces a subjugated class of Repeaters to only speak in square symbols, and in turn use these as blocks to build towers. The film’s protagonist is a rebellious creature who one day produces a different, forbidden symbol and is hastily banished into a nearby wasteland. The character eventually finds a group of others like them who have met similar fates, and, joining forces with this band of misfits, soon discovers the power of these forbidden symbols to change their world.
The judges said: “Beautifully crafted throughout, incredible visual treatment and storytelling and good hybrid of 2D and 3D.”
HIGHLY COMMENDED
Late Means Never
by Uncommon Creative Studios, for B&Q
In 2021, B&Q released the third campaign under its Build a Life brand platform. This campaign, which focused on the interiors of our homes, was an invitation for people to improve their lives by transforming their domestic spaces. B&Q asked Uncommon Creative Studio to animate a film which would inspire audiences to take the plunge and begin the process, and the studio responded by creating Late Means Never, a stop-motion tale that shows the power we have once we decide to make a change.
Directed by Sam Gainsborough, the film tackles the inertia that comes between us and our desired transformations by presenting the power that family can have in pushing us forward. It uses traditional stop-motion techniques and hand-painted silicone puppets to create a nostalgic feel that is reminiscent of British animation classics. The living room in the film is based on B&Q’s interiors range, with each piece of miniature furniture reflecting a real product.
The Hundred Title Sequence
by Coffee &TV, for BBC Sport
BBC Sport recruited London-based creative studio Coffee & TV to design the title sequence for the coverage of The Hundred – a new form of cricket created to appeal to new audiences. The brief the team were given was to “take people by surprise” and appeal to a new generation of fans, who would be interested in this fresh take on a traditional sport.
Coffee & TV decided on a mixed-media approach, which uses impactful and energetic imagery fused with colourful 3D sequences, 2D collage-style elements, photography, video and typography. To achieve this, they shot a diverse range of players on green screen and utilised documentary-style portraiture of fans in their respective cities, evoking a sense of pride. This was accompanied by a soundtrack from rapper and urban artist Nayana IZ, which matches the energy of the visuals and creates a strong contrast to what might be expected from a cricket programme.
BBC Three – Captain, Spider & Pointer
by Superunion, for BBC
Following a six-year hiatus, BBC Three was planning a return to UK TV and needed a new brand identity to recapture the attention of its key demographic – 16 to 34 year olds. It tasked brand studio Superunion with the job of communicating its new message: that BBC Three is not a grown-up channel, it’s a channel that’s growing up.
In response, Superunion created a set of idents that reflect the culture of young people today. These idents came in the form of three personified hands, called Captain, Spider and Pointer, who each explore, play and engage with topics that this demographic cares about. Working with a director, Superunion gave each character their own personality, movement and mannerisms. These were created by filming the hands of puppeteers as they acted-out various scenes, and then passing the footage onto an animation studio to recreate, and occasionally embellish, the movement. The result is entertaining, relatable, and, at times, comedic.
Logi Dock: A Beautiful Mess
by ManvsMachine, for Logitech
With working from home now a firmly established post-pandemic practice, and with many of us having to deal with cluttered desks full of cables and equipment, Logitech needed an eye-catching film to announce the timely arrival of its new product: Logi Dock. An all-in-one device designed to streamline the modern home into a one-stop creative hub, Logi Dock is the dream solution for those of us that struggle to work surrounded by mess.
Thus creative studio ManvsMachine, which was brought in to work on this brief, created A Beautiful Mess, a short, animated film that strikes the perfect balance between chaos and beauty. It shows a moving mountain of cables, which is swallowing a desk beneath it, being blown away by the arrival of the Logi Dock. The device quickly removes the mess, replacing it with a streamlined set-up that allows the desk space to be functional once again. This simple 30-second film effectively champions the product’s key features and drives home the message that the Logi Dock is the answer to a productive home office.
TV, Film and Video Graphics
shortlisted
HIGHLY COMMENDED
Life's looking sweeter: The Great British Bake Off
by Intro, for 4creative, Channel 4
To announce the launch of The Great British Bake Off 2021 on Channel 4, its in-house creative agency developed a simple campaign in which spectacular cakes are merged with mundane real-world scenes. In one, an enormous Battenburg lorry drives down a busy motorway, while in another, a field of sheep watches on as a giant jammy Lamington is lifted by a tractor onto the back of a truck.
In order to create these fantastical collage moments, 4creative brought in creative stuido Intro to seamlessly combine the two. The team at Intro worked the surreal cakes into each shot with an inventive blend of CGI and various VFX techniques. From creating lifelike models of each cake and bedding into the library shots, to roto work and animations, each scene required a different illusion to create the mind-bending reality.
Moments Mean More
by Carbon, for FanDuel
Gambling company FanDuel asked creative production studio Carbon to create a short spot for its Make Moments More campaign, which encourages viewers to enhance the moments they experience watching professional sports by betting on the games through its app.
The resulting spot shows a fast-paced series of edits across 14 different films and features rapid-fire design and animation. As the campaign title suggests, it highlights the moments that truly matter to sports fans, which – with money invested – becomes every punch, kick and shot. The piece mixes motion graphics with live action sports and seamlessly shifts between cel animation, character animation, CG and VFX. Each sport shown is accompanied by a matching typeface style to create a needed distinction between the rapidly transitioning scenes.