For the love of music and anime: VICTOR JARDEL

I'm a 27 years old French, I live in Paris. I spent 5 years in a Parisian graphic school and made 2 short films with my friends Eddy Loukil and Ghayth Chegaar there -- I was mainly focused on the animation, and listened Senbeï's music in a loop.

After I started to work as a freelance animator. And one night when I went to see Smokey Joe and The Kid playing live (a group former by IRB and Senbeï), I wanted Senbeï's autograph on my newly bought album, just like all fans… but I got to talk to him about my job. I told him that I really wanted to make animated music video. Our collaboration started there. 

I started this collaboration with the clip Robbery Anthem Song: a universe had already created in my mind by its sound. I stayed in contact with my friend Eddy Loukil and told him (as an also Senbeï's fan) he could help me to make that clip. So the Grey Monkey Production was created. 

We made another clip together for Smokey Joe And The Kid (with Senbeï so) Slow Drag.

I made videos for Senbeï's live then, but Senbeï wanted some simple visuals, so I did it on my own.

Then Senbeï wanted me to make the clip Rain. I really wanted to make live video and feature my characters in 3D. It is a type of video that I really wanted to have in my portfolio. So I went filming in some corners of Paris I like. 

It took me 2 months and a half to complete that video (including the inspiration time and the pre-production). I would like to have much more time, but I saw this small leap like a challenge.

My main inspirations come from Ghibli’s universe (the productions studio, Princess Mononoke, Le Voyage de Chihiro ...), Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas, and some draws I make.

The art is for me the expression of our dreams or nightmares. My creativity comes a lot from my nightmares, I’ve had some sleeping troubles for a while and I think that affects my ideas. I can't complain much because it helps me with work and I love my work. 

The art of filmmaking and graphic design with GRIFF

I'm a UK based artist and I illustrate, animate and direct commercials, music vids and short films.

The work used to fall into either abstract artier animation, charming/funny character animation, or harrowing live action drama. Recently they have begun to overlap, with random animation onto of live action/photography, with moments of humour – it’s just taken me ages to realise they don't have to be mutually exclusive. 

I think creativity only really comes about through adversity. 

Struggles – biblical or political or social – always makes for good art, whereas I can't imagine anything more boring than something painted by Mr Happy on holiday in Niceland.

Adversity doesn't have to relate solely to the subject matter though, it can instead be the circumstances under which it’s made. Give someone infinite resources to make anything they want and they'll create something flaccid, give someone a tiny budget, very little time or a nightmare of a task and the chances are they'll (have to) come up with something inspired.

That’s not to suggest that clients should pay less and reduce schedules (!) but it is beneficial to the artists creativity even if they have to self-impose restrictions, if only to encourage focus. It's no good to blame a lack of money or a tight brief, they should be the things to inspire the solution.

GRIFF , ANIMATION, LIVE ACTION

Happy Designs by SUPERFICTION

Happy Designs by SUPERFICTION

We are a culture design studio based in Seoul, Korea with various members from different backgrounds. From brand design to illustration, motion graphic, product design and marketing, we’re a bunch of creative minds joined into one group.

We all come from different regions and environments and this helps a lot to bring new ideas and perspective into all our ongoing collaborative projects globally.

Most of our members have a design background. From college to actual field work, we all have been doing ‘art’ in our own way and believe that how we grew up (the environment, the people, the amount of time spent on creativity etc) had a big impact on our work. With these experiences we try to build a strong story in our work. We believe good story telling is a good base for strong content and the best way to connect with all the people who appreciates our work. 

We believe art and creativity is, in the end, all about playing, having fun!

Playing with design, culture, art and life style, we do these to better the quality of our lives and have fun. This is art and creativity to us.

SCOTT / DIRECTOR

Lightning Boy Studio : Animation made in Montreal

Our team at Lightning Boy Studio is made of three people : David Forest, Carl Beauchemin and Thomas Chrétien.

We are three friends who met when we were studying 3D animation in Montreal city. We quickly realized that we would make a great team and since then our goal has been to work with each other and make the best movies possible. Le Gouffre is the first official project we did together.

When developing projects together, our biggest focus is the story. A good story resonates with people, and we want to share emotions and feelings with the world when we make a movie. Of course, pretty images, good acting and good animation are all important when making an animated film, but everything will be meaningless if the core of the story isn't good. That's why we spent 6 months refining our story before starting to work full time on Le Gouffre.

Art can be many things, and can be used to express almost anything. But the art that resonates the most with us is the art of storytelling. How to use both sound and image to communicate ideas with people that might not even speak the same language as you. Storytelling is among the oldest art forms, it is part of human nature to tell stories, and it is what pushes us at Lightning Boy Studio to do art.

Carl, Thomas and David

Le Gouffre

Creating eye catching on screen: WEARESEVENTEEN

How would you describe your work and why do you do it?

We aim to create work that is visually beautiful but also means something, has a message or at least makes people think. We don’t always succeed of-course but our aim is always the same.

How do you bring your vision to light?

The creative process is always different depending on the project and techniques used - but there are common stages - i.e. We always clearly need to first work out what we are really trying to say or communicate, we then explore stylistically what aesthetic best coneys and reinforces that message, then its the classic process of storyboarding, designing, animating, audio, etc etc - the process isn’t 'rocket science’ and is always easier when there is a clear idea that we can refer back to and question whether all that we are doing is reinforcing that idea. 

The trickiest part is coming up with good ideas that feel fresh and original.

By George Alexander

weareseventeen