Mark Simpson’s Pictoplasma Berlin 2015 Report

Mark Simpson, creative director and founder of Sydney animation house Sixty40 has returned from Pictoplasma Berlin. He reports exclusively for CB.

Pictoplasma- quite simply the world’s foremost symposium of character design and animation. Come to think of it, it might in fact be the only one but that doesn’t make it any less incredible. If characters are your thing, like they are mine, Pictoplasma is nirvana.

This years event combines 4 screenings of over 80 of the world’s best contemporary character-based animated shorts, along with your traditional conference style presentations from various international animation directors up and coming as well as super-star. All this is blended with a 3 day festival featuring workshops (character design, flock-craft fundamentals and advanced plasticine experimentation), performance, and a massive exhibition of imagery, all exploring the power and role of characters in art, animation and the universe at large.

Even if you wouldn’t consider yourself a character design fanatic, the work on display carries weight in more general spheres of interest. Seeing the range of approaches to storytelling, techniques and styles is like getting your eyes washed out with a very refreshing soap.

Speaking of eyes, take for instance, the foundation image.Creating a character in it’s simplest form. Hail the power of sticking eyes on something!

This fine fellow comes from Lucas Zanotto’s side project “Having A Face” wherein he carries plates around in his bag and places them as eyes on rocks (or other bits of nature). He also created the opening titles for Pictoplasma 2015

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It’s a great feature of the human mind that it is hardwired to recognise faces, even in inanimate objects, a phenomena known scientifically as Pareidolia. This project shows how far the mind however goes well beyond that: we imbue personality, feeling and maybe history into these faced objects. There were many examples in this festival of how simple character design, combined with animation and a great story can carry a suprising amount lot of emotional gravitas.

These films went from the bat-shit crazy (I’m looking at you “Leslie the pony has an a+ day “to the deeply moving (Monster In the Closet by Yves Glenn, who also directed the sone of the biggest budget and most beautiful animated spots of 2014).

I’ll put “Leslie” at the bottom so as not to over-do-it too soon.

Here’s “Monster” which uses the freedom of animation (versus a live action shoot) to deliver a narrative moment which would have been unthinkable otherwise.

If you haven’t seen it, I won’t reveal too much.. just have a watch.

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Below is some more highlights from the festival which serve as examples of how exciting and varied animation is today. We all know this already but it’s deeply inspiring to see the range of approaches and narrative results the same medium can embody. With characters as a common theme, the collection cut straight through the strata of contemporary animation in a unique and exciting way.

Let’s go on a journey through the juicy insides of what’s happening around the world. I’ll spare you the films so epically strange they made me want to cry and scream with joy at the same time; and also anything over a couple of minutes long (thus making this collection easier to  justify watching at work). These are some seriously wonderful pieces. If I may be so bold, go fullies (that’s “Full Screen Mode” in case you’re new). If you’re half reading your email and half watching, you’ll do yourself a disservice. Good luck!

Boy’s Latin Panda Bear, Director Isaiah Saxon, Sean Hellfritcsh and Eran Hilleli

So Lush. A no holds barred psychedelic adventure with a killer story.

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The Divide, Brent Silvers.

So Simple. Very restricted character design with incredibly stylised animation approach to suit.

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Father, Farshid Monfared. Let’s get even simpler. Building on the theme of simplicity, but now adding a story acted out with squares.

The wider universe of characters.

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For diversity of style alone, “Chit Chat Roulette” deserves a mention.

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While we’re in a pretty strange place let’s all enjoy “Don’t hug me I’m scared”. This amazing series (that’s right a whole series of these has been made, enabled by the magic of crowdfunding… the people know what they want!).

I’ll show you the latest one (#4) which, since March 31 (6 days) has got 6 million views on YouTube. It’s super weird, but coupled with heart and smart.

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Too Weird?

As sort of an antidote to that piece of high-weirdness let me remind you of how a more traditional commercial can carry such weight that might move people towards a purchase. So beautiful is this piece that I don’t think anyone would mind at all.

John Lewis, The Bear and the hare, Directed by Elliot Dear & Yves Geleyn.

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(This is also a great example of how far animators can go given the freedom to make something stunning. Each character frame in this film is printed out and placed on a real set and filmed frame by frame with minimal post effects)

Summary

Pictoplasma is a festival with a singular focus. It’s not only interested in the advertising world per se and we can take or leave parts of it as we see fi
t. But what it does do is show some wonderfully brave and heartfelt artists pushing the medium(s) and that was lovely to see. In the advertising context, wonderful animation with wonderful characters and a wonderful story can be so powerful that it’s worth keeping pushing forward.

If you’re still reading, reward yourself with the previously threatened “Leslie the pony”.

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