The latest stop-motion short, Fresh Guacamole, by Adam Pesapane, the artist known as PES, is a feast for the eyes. The follow-up to his Spaghetti Western is a claymation stop motion film in which he crafts homemade guacomole from random household objects, everchanging during the preparation.
If you never saw his most famous stop motion video, Spaghetti Western, which won several awards including *2009 Sundance Film Festival Winner, *TIME Magazine voted #2 Viral Video of the Year and the *2009 Audience Award, Annecy Animation Festival, watch it below:
PES is one person, not a film collective or a production company.
"Clicking on a PES film is to open a safe and suddenly see a million ideas glittering and exploding," says Director Michel Gondry. "The only reason you close the door is to re-open it just after and discover what will pop this time." - Paste Magazine
This little animated film appeared on Google Japan as an animated way to explain how Google Street View works. Fun to watch and enlightening... I guess that's infotainment!
So, like many bloggers this morning, I came across this wonderful ad and was going to post it as follows:
Fabulous new stop-motion animation with Clay Bunnies for Sony's Bravia tv:
Credits Title: Play-Doh Client: Sony Bravia Ad agency: Fallon, London Creative director: Juan Cabral Executive creative director: Richard Flintham Agency producer: Nicky Barnes Account director: Ben Cyzer Director: Frank Budgen Production company: Gorgeous Enterprises Producer: Rupert Smythe Song: Rolling Stones, She's Like A Rainbow
And, of course, the making of:
And then the controversy began. At first I thought that the post on Gizmodo was an overreaction.
Given that I'm an Advertising Creative/Art Director (yes, that's my "real" job) I was ready to defend creatives in the business for often using artists as their source of "inspiration". Something that has been happening in all art forms for centuries. After all, Kozyndan's work is clearly inspired by Hokusai, so why can't Fallon London be inspired by Kozyndan?
Above: Kozyndan's Bunny Tsunami
Above: Hokusai's Wave
Given that this is not Sony Bravia's first spot to use lots of colorful animation as a metaphor for a good color television, and that Kozyndan works in a static medium and this is tv, I thought maybe they initially intended to use Kozyndan as the actual animator (which, perhaps is why they requested samples of his work).
After all, I could see the process happening as such. But then decided that "illustration' wasn't a good metaphor for high def tv, so they decided to go with stop motion animation.
This is all a guess from having sat through hundreds of pre-production meetings.
But then the ugly comments began to appear. And frankly, I'm not sure how I feel now.
Do you think the spot should have credited Kozydan? Do you think it should say "Inspired by Kozydan? but then should it really say "Inspired by Kozydan, who was inspired By Hokusai"?
First from Gizmodo: Sony Bastards Ripped Off the Bunny Tsunami Ad What the Hell. When I saw this morning's post on the awesome Sony Bravia Bunny Ad, featuring multi-hued rabbits climbing through a cityscape transforming into a tidalwave, I assumed it was the work of my favorite artists, the LA-based kozyndan. By my front door, I have a framed print of one of their limited edition NYC bunny panoramics, which I've put below. Aside from this, they're probably best known for reworking of Hokusai's "Great Wave off Kana gawa" with bunnies inserted in the place of the white wash, which was featured on a Giant Robot magazine cover. I was only half right about kozyndan's involvement with this Sony project, unfortunately. They were robbed: For pretty damning proof, watch the video, and read on.
Apparently, the Passion Pictures animation studio ripped off kozyndan's after requesting samples of their work and never called them back. Dan just wrote me an email about it to confirm that this is pretty much the story, at least from their side.
I hear this happens often in advertising, but that doesn't make it fucking right. I guess it's not Sony's fault, but they should at least get their money back or get Passion Pictures to give a fair chunk to the artists. I'm pissed and not sure what I, or anyone else can do about it. Thoughts? [Passion Pictures vs KozyNDan]
To add insult to injury, someone from Passion Pictures contacted us almost two years ago asking to see samples of our work (including this panoramic) as they were interested in working with us. We sent them samples and then heard nothing from them ever again. (It should be noted though, that the more likely culprit is the ad firm who hired Passion Pictures, Fallon.)
It's not like KozyNDan are so outside of mainstream media that nobody would eventually notice. I still love the ad, but this certainly takes some of the magic away. I've seen it happen so many times at big agencies - there is little regard for the line between inspiration and flat-out plagiarism, and often a complete lack of conscience or even understanding why it's wrong. (Some people call it "business", but psychiatrists call this kind of behavior "psychopathy".)
