Direction  Design  Animation  Objects  About

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Best commissioned film at KLIK!* 2018

Nomination for best commissioned film at the Emile Awards 2018

Vimeo Staff Pick

 

Screened internationally at SICAF, CutOut, Pictoplasma, LIAF, Grafixx, Reanimania, Anim’est. LIFF, Animaze, Supertoon, CAF and more.

 

Directed and Designed
Jennifer Zheng

Production Studio
Moth Studio

Produced
Moth Studio

Animation
Maria Morris, Keziah Philipps, Knifeson Yu, Jennifer Zheng and Moth Studio

Compositing
Daniele Baiardini, Keziah Philipps, Ross Plaskow, Moth Studio

Music and Sound Design
Skillbard

Commissioner
Massive Science

Co-Production
Massive and Plympton

Producer
Harriet Bailey

Producer
Nadja Oertelt

Executive Producer
Ed Finn, Bob Beard

Production year
2018

 

*Now known as Kaboom.

Massive Science

Better Humans

 

Sexy yetis, scientists and neon colours collide in Better Humans: a kaleidoscopic romp through the possibilities of gene editing and body augmentation.

 

One of a seven-part series on the lasting impact of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.

I had just been to Japan when this project came in and became hypnotised by the flashing displays, colours and toys there. The monster figurines (Kaiju) in particular were inspiring. The script was about gene editing so I combined that with Kaiju to imagine a future where people could and wanted to look like monsters.

Now, this concept was already quite ungrounded, so I decided to lean in and make the visual style campy to compliment it.

Scanned in designs on cel, gif

In Japan I found these POSCA paint markers, they’re really neon and blobby. It was hard to be accurate and detailed so I embraced the medium and the visual style naturally became more loose, fun and bright. 

Posca cel effect compositing breakdown

We drew all the backgrounds with POSCAs on animation cels before scanning them in and treated the character animation to match.

The process gave the film a handmade low-fi feel which gave a more playful vibe to complement the speculative nature of the interview.

exo-skeleton hand turnaround
exoskeleton fruit picker clip
Better humans, scientists typing gif
Better humans, scientist in lab with dubious experiment
Better humans still giant robot spaceships in space