Friday, October 17, 2008

Wonder in Wanderlust


Bjork's new stereoscopic 3-D video "Wanderlust" screened yesterday at FIT because a couple of FIT graduates worked on the imaging. This video is awesome!! Okay, well, we can also say...Bjork is awesome.

Dressed in mash-up fantasy Tibetan costume, Bjork communes with Himalayan yaks, traverses a raging river, struggles with her alter ego Pain-Body, and finally cascades over a waterfall, plummeting into the awaiting hands of Rivergod. This is no subtle journey of self-discover. Bjork and her dual self are fighting (or dancing as if in a pas de deux) upon the backs of these wooly mammoths as the river carries them, rushes them, towards the arms of fate.

It is magical to see a river play such a key role - here, vivid blue, ever changing, whirring and churring. And get this....made from hair.

Here's a link to the 2-d video. Slightly disappointing now I've seen it in 3-d.

Here is a link to the video in 3-d and a making-of short.

I learned from a couple of the animators, that they originally thought this video would only take a few weeks to make. Well, duh, it took them nine months and a team of volunteers to complete this labor of love. The video was created using a blend of puppetry, live action and CG, and was a collaboration between producers Ghost Robot, directors Encyclopedia Pictura (Isaiah Saxon and Sean Hellfrich) and New York-based animation house UVPhactory.

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