Colenso BBDO’s animated film ‘Going West’ for NZ Book Council wins international prize
Colenso BBDO’s animated film Going West, produced for The New Zealand Book Council to promote books and reading, has received the nod from the Museum of Art and Design in New York.
The animation, which brings to life an excerpt from Maurice Gee’s novel Going West, won the Museum’s Choice grand prize award at Moving Paper, an international film festival of cut paper animation and was screened to audiences in New York last weekend.
The judges commented: “Your piece is truly exceptional, and the decision to award it the grand prize was unanimous among our judges.”
Colenso BBDO and London’s Andersen M Studios worked for eight-months to bring Maurice Gee’s Going West to life through hand cut ‘pop up’ scenery springing up from the pages in an attempt to inspire more New Zealanders to read more books.
The Going West film has became a YouTube hit and reached the worldwide top 10 in the viral video charts. It was viewed online more than 725,600 times, inspired more than 3400 tweets on Twitter or blog posts worldwide, and reached number 8 in the Viral Video Chart compiled by Unruly Media.
It also picked up two golds in the ‘Charity’ and ‘Art Direction and Typography’ categories in the 2010 AXIS Awards.
Commenting on these latest accolades, New Zealand Book Council Chief Executive, Noel Murphy says: “We wanted to grab people’s attention for just one moment in the hurly burly world of modern media and direct them to the adventure that can be had in one’s own head at the flick of a page. Colenso and the Andersen M Studios created something that achieved that and more by literally bringing the book itself to life. The fact that this video continues to garner praise from around the world is a testament to its originality and also to the enduring power of books and stories.”
4 Comments
Lovely, lovely, lovely.
Exquisite stuff, that rewards every viewing.
You really can feel the love in every frame.
Congratulations to all involved, especially to the client,
who no doubt had to be persuaded into paying pounds sterling
for a London outfit to make it.
I predict you’ll be repaid with much silverware.
One of my all time faves.
Does anyone know how long did this take to make? It might be a good idea to use it as a case study for clients in how long it takes to make something of this quality.
I’m guessing it wasn’t two weeks, though you never know these days.
Read the blurb. It took eight months.