Winners & Shortlists

EPIC THREAD

TitleEPIC THREAD
BrandTHE FABLEISTS
Product/ServiceTHE FABLEISTS
Category A10. ANIMATION
Entrant Company THE MILL London, UNITED KINGDOM
Advertising Agency BROTHERS AND SISTERS London, UNITED KINGDOM
Production Company THE MILL London, UNITED KINGDOM
Credits
Name Company Position
Ashlie Hutber/Lois Mould Brothers/Sisters Producer
Ashlie Hutber/Lois Mould Brothers/Sisters Creatives
Ivo Sousa/Kwok Fung Lam Mill Animation Directors
Luke Colson Mill Executive Producer
Oana Anghel Mill Producer
Charles Bigeast/Ivo Sousa/Kwok Fung Lam Mill Designer
Melanie Climent Mill Additional Colour Keys
Roly Edwards/Kwok Fung Lam/Matt Partridge/Harriet Gillian/Ivo Sousa/Diogo Pinhei Mill 2d Animation
Matt Whitewood/Ivo Sousa/Stephanie Dewhirst/Jessica Tan/Paul Bloomfield/Ashley T Mill 3d Animation
Ivo Sousa/Kwok Fung Lam/Joseph Sommerville Mill Compositing

Brief Explanation

The design and animation team created a charming, colourful and engaging short film for children’s eco-fashion brand The Fableists. The film, narrated by Jennifer Saunders, tells the story of a young girl, taken on a whimsical journey by the loose thread on her t-shirt in the quest to discover its origins. The animated short is a one off, but is part of The Fableists’ wider concern to promote ethical clothing standards within the fashion industry. Inspired by the illustrative and graphic style of The Fableists’ t-shirt designs and by the concept of how a child might see the world, animation directors created an animation sequence using exaggerated angles, bold colours, distorted reality and tight cameras to create an epic fantasy journey full of energy and most importantly fun.

Creative Execution

The team gathered as much inspirational material as possible, from character look and graphical compositions, to colour and texture. This was followed by a real hands on approach creating character designs, mood boards, style frames, storyboards and animatics, all contributing to the final look and feel. Artists used a whole host of techniques to bring this project into fruition; Style frames were drawn up in Photoshop, the character animation was drawn frame by frame in Flash, with other elements being completed in Cinema 4D before the whole piece was composited together in AFX and Premiere. The big challenge was to hook every shot, creating a sense of fluidity and give each scene it's on independent feel. Transporting a child to a fantastic world and mirroring this into the animation. Technically there were different approaches such as the use of flash, 2D and 3D, which needed to be combined seamlessly.