Archive notice: This article was originally published on August 9, 2007. Links and embedded videos are preserved as part of the historical record.
Like all award winners, the work by Grzegorz Jonkajtys and Marcin Kobylecki produced with XSI (known as the producer of “Fallen Art” from 2005, see DIGITAL PRODUCTION 06:05) is distinguished, alongside the exemplary use of computer-generated images and animations, also by its story.
This year’s festival director Paul Debevec of the Institute for Creative Technologies at the University of Southern California comments on the award-winning works:
“The winners this year are an excellent example of how computer graphics enable small, independent groups to create film with vast landscapes, complex performers and astonishing effects. Just as computer graphics lets the dividing line between real and virtual blur, each of these films explores in its own unique way what is tangible and what is imaginary and whether this distinction is important at all.”
For Debevec, the award-winning films are “not little cartoons in which scissors dance with hole punches, but works with believable, human performers who find their love, suffer losses and face their mortality and leave a deep emotional impression on the audience.”
Both the plot of “Ark” and its visual as well as acoustic realization are equally disturbing and fascinating, entertaining and frightening: An unknown virus has wiped out almost all of humanity. Without recognizing the true nature of the epidemic, the last survivors flee aboard gigantic ships to the open sea. The refugees they set out in search of uninhabited land that was spared by the deadly virus. Thus begins the exodus, led by one man.
DIGITAL PRODUCTION shows the making-of presentation as part of the awards ceremony.
Further links:
- Computer Animation Festival – Best of Show: Ark
