Stranded Elephant

This animations is a a short title for Thirst Pockets.


http://www.nexusproductions.com/wall


The animation shows an elephant standing on a small island in the middle of nowhere. The elephant gets a serious face, and he sticks his trunk into the water. He drinks the water, slowly revealing the island he is on to be a giant octopus. The elephant is shocked, and the Octopus shoves the elephant so it loses balance and stumbles off the screen. The Octopus then climbs behind the logo for Thirst Pockets, which has the elephant on it.

This animation is not flashy in any way. It uses simple animations on a white background, so that it can be easily viewed in 10 seconds.

Magnetically

This animation is a commercial for Frito Lays.

http://www.nexusproductions.com/wall

The animation starts with a magnet walking by himself with slumping posture that indicates he is lonely. An exclamation point pops up above his head, and he runs to a lock. He tries to stick to it like the magnet he is, but a large hand comes in from the top of the screen and lifts it away. The magnet falls through the air. It lands next to a giant cat, with what appears to be a magnet stuck to the opposite side of it. When the magnet tries to stick to the cat, the cat swats it away, and what looked like a magnet turns out to be a tail. The magnet is then alone, staring up at the moon. The magnet tries to attract the moon to it, but the moon does not budge from its spot. The magnet hangs its head, lonely. Suddenly, it is pulled to the right, sliding on its feet. It does a double take, unsure of what is going on, but it continues to be pulled to the right. It enters a new area, and sees a magnet on the other side of the screen. The two are surprised to see each other, but attract towards each other and stick together. They form a heart shape and float up into the sky, an outline of them radiating outwards in varying colors. The logo for Fritos Chips and Dip then transitions into the center of the screen, with the line "made for each other" at the bottom of the screen.

What struck me most about this animation was how human the magnet seemed despite being such a simple animation. It shows that complex movements aren't needed to make a strong composition.

Helping Hand

This animation was done to speak out against physical abuse by showing the positive uses of one's hands in raising a child.

http://www.nexusproductions.com/wall

The animation begins with a child's head in the center of the screen. A pair of hands combs his hair and puts a scarf on the child, and the child walks off screen. The scarf is a rainbow, and it waves in the background as a child begins walking across the screen. The ground that the child is walking on turns into a hand that the child walks along, who then jumps to another hand on the other side of the screen. Colored rain drops begin falling, and the child runs onto a grassy area and under a hand that is sticking out of the ground for shelter. The child then continues to the right, and the hand rotates into place to be part of the steps that the child climbs, another hand filling the spot of a different step as well. The colors shift to black and white, with the child on a hill under a tree. The child jumps for an apple in the tree, and the tree is revealed to be made of hands, which lower the apple to the child. The child then jumps and then lands in a swing held up by two giant hands. The hands fly off screen and the child walks along the line that was part of the swing to the right, a toy dog following him. He runs down a hill shaped like a hand, jumping from finger to finger and hand to hand to get down. A hand catches him and lowers him onto a bike, while another hand puts a helmet on the child. As the child rides his bike, the hands walk alongside him. The child dismounts the bike and jumps between two hands, which each take one of his hands and hold him in the air. They then swing him up into the air, and he falls down into the palm of a new hand, which joins with another hand to form a heart shape with the child in the center. The message then pops up, Hands should Nurture not Punish. The camera then pans down to the question, "Are you hands Weapons of Love?"

The transitions of this animation were amazing. Many times I was caught by surprise by the ways the hands blended into the environment until they were moved.

This is for the birds.

This animation is the intro to Mirrorball, an event at the Edinburgh International Film Festival.

http://www.nexusproductions.com/wall

The animation features birds made using collage. The birds are made of anything from a simple pattern, to currency, to a record. In addition, different materials are used for different species of birds. The hole in the center of a record is used as an eye for the bird. What appears to be newspaper clippings folded up into a beak, has squinting eyes on it, which make it look like an owl.

As the music of the into plays, the birds move and look around to the beats of the music.

As the birds look around, one can see the materials themselves are shifting the angles they are viewed at, making the birds seem that much more lifelike.

By the end of the intro, all of the birds are dancing on screen at once, and it is difficult to follow just one bird and see how it follows the music.

I can only imagine how long it took to sync everything up.