Short Animation Films – Big Creativity

The Lady and The Reaper (La Dama y La Muerte)

The city of Granada (Spain) became one of the leading representatives of animation in Spain after the excellent work of young Grenadian Recio Javier Gracia, of the Kandor Moon production company and with the collaboration of Antonio Banderas (as a producer), that gave as a result the short called “The Lady and The Reaper“.

The story introduces us to an old woman, whose husband is dead now, before this, she is willing to meet him, but she`ll be subject of a feud between The Reaper and a pretentious doctor in which the winner will keep her soul.

The Lady and The Reaper sketches

To understand how the idea of this short was born, we must go back 2 years ago, when Kandor Moon was making its first animation film production “The Missing Lynx”. Then, the company was in desire to create their own international renown production. Once completed “The Missing Lynx” they arranged an internal competition with the desire to promote talent and channel the artistic and computer techniques of their crew. “The Lady and The Reaper” was the result of that contest.

Currently, Kandor Moon, in association with Green Moon and Antonio Banderas, is working on “Goleor” the first animated feature made in Spain in 3D.The production will cost approximately 22 million euros and is directed by Manuel Sicilia.

The Lady and The Reaper sketches

The short film was nominated for the Goya Awards where it won the award for best animated film, and weeks later it was nominated for an Oscar, where It lost to the spectacular Logorama Short.

The Lady and The Reaper

For those who have enjoyed this short and want to know more about it and it`s production, check its official website, theladyandthereaper.com.

Logorama

It’s a 17 minutes story to Hollywood style, where among characters, settings and objects, are more than 2,500 brands, logos and isologotypes. The short starts sounding now, after 4 years of work by the H5 studio.

Ludovic Houplain, founder of the French studio, note that with Logorama they did not intend to make “a piece of art”. The intention was to create a story that “anyone could see and enjoy”.

The first time I got this idea, was after making the video clip “The Child”, wich I did with Antoine Bardou Jaquet in 1999. We designed a world in which there was only fonts. Our production company at the time, Mini Minuit, suggested we do a clip for Telepopmusic, a French music band. Even then decided to do a short with American and Russian logos. The idea was to establish an East-West duel with their logos and to express the clash between the 2 cultures and the 2 superpowers. But the project never materialized.

For 2 years I worked with my brother Cyril Houplain in finding logos from different eras and for one year the project was put on stand-by. Then we started working with George Harrison, and because he wanted a video that criticized the consumer society. Re adapted the idea with Herve de Crecy and set in New Orleans. The town, entirely constituted by logos, was ravaged by a cyclone. The streets were flooded, the logos were torn from their place and washed away. “

The record company was delighted with the work, but asked us to redesign the logos and that they were false, Ludovic thought that made no sense if the logos were not real. When George Harrison died, thought it’s time to revisit the idea and not ever sell it. H5 produce the film.

They started producing it in 2006. They wanted to create a picture of contemporary society through its two strongest points, logos and visual media. A sort of extension of Pop Art.

When asked about why he did not want to spread the short film in the internet, Ludovic answered:

“It’s fundamentally an artistic decision. We are not happy with the quality offered by current platforms for video sharing. It is interesting for the transmission, curiosity and information. But for the dissemination of an artistic work is regrettable. YouTube or Dailymotion have not yet sufficient technical quality.

Finally Logorama noteworthy that won the Oscar for best animated film in 2010.

Logorama Trailer

Ludovic Interview on Yorokobu.es