Brazilian director and animator Diego Ferreira created a short stop-motion animation by taking pieces of cardboard, old computer parts, and aluminum wire and turning them into small sculptures to build the set, props, and main character of the film.
The film, titled Los Rosales, won the Best Animation Short at Palm Springs International ShortFest, the largest short film festival in North America.
Ferreira, a film maker at Italy-based creative research center Fabrica, started the project as a music video for a track composed by musician, composer and fellow Fabrica resident Jhon William Castaño Montoya. The project slowly developed into a short animation about a lonely robot who goes through a daily routine of working wheels and cogs to produce a monthly rose, his only means of survival. Each month he devours the rose to keep himself powered up and marks the passing of time on a calendar until one day the parts of his machine starts to break down and the robot finds himself facing his ‘death’.
The film, which happens to be Ferreira’s debut short film, has a post-apocalyptic and steampunk vibe and tells a “robot story” that is as moving as any story about a human trying to stay alive. The main character has a very human quality about him as he labors every single day for his survival. There’s something poetic about operating machinery to produce something beautiful like a rose, only to consume it to stay alive.
Ferreira taught himself how to create the twisted aluminum sculptures in the film by watching videos on the internet. Each piece was moved individually to create over 21,000 frames for the stop-motion animation.
The short film was a collaborative process with Ferreira’s fellow creatives at Fabrica. Montoya contributed his music, Ferreira directed the film and did the editing with Alessandro Favaron, who also pitched in with color correction. Geremia Vinattieri helped with sound and Luca Carrara provided set assistance. Ries Straver provided creative supervision.
The film Los Rosales can be viewed on Fabrica’s Vimeo page.
Watch the making of the film below to see how it all came together.
Source: Slate
This post was originally written by Leah Gonzalez for PSFK.