Proelium

stop-motion animated short 06:28 1920x1080 (2016)

video

Proelium is a short stop-motion animation created by Suriya Siero, Marvin Dophemont, Loïs Westra and myself.

In every conflict, there are two sides. None of them are specifically wrong or right. They are just incapable of seeing each other's perspective. When these two opposites clash, the only real victims are the ones that never wanted to fight in the first place.

This project started out with the idea of creating a movie about the struggles of coöperation (since it was the first time for any of us to make a movie in a group).

Quickly we started drawing out different kinds of characters that would contrast with one another. We knew we were going to use stop-motion so we wanted the designs to reflect the materials they were going to be made of.

We ended up with two opposite characters. One is a spikey giant made out of metal and wood. His design was inspired by the bauhaus school.

The other character is a majestic imposing woman made out of cloth and paper. Her design was inspired by the jugendstill movement.

We created one final character that reflects the blank world. This umimposing figure was made to illustrate the neutral side.

In the final story both beings design a blank world in their image. However when confronted with one another they cannot seem to cooperate and end up destroying their world. The character that never wanted to fight can only watch how his world falls apart.

Find images below from the first version of the Gossip DataScape as part of the Impossible Bodies exhibition in Den Bosch, the Netherlands.