The New Yorker
Story Films
Approach
The art of parallax photography. How is this done? A singular photograph has all the elements necessary to bring a given story to life. There’s a way to gracefully dramatize these images in 3d space. Characters, atmospherics and scenery are all placed in planar space. A photo already tells a story, it has a focus and elements working together to tell the viewer exactly what’s happening. Despite being motionless, we use this to our advantage to retell the narrative through the image, breaking it up into various moments, revealing the visuals as pertains to the VO. Every photo is mid moment which has a start and an end. Embrace that.
Often times, creating a living image includes adding depth. We want to take it much further than that. An image needs atmosphere. This is made effective by defining a foreground, mid ground and background. Depth is also created by adding the illusion of air or volume. The space is filled with directional light, light bounce and soft particulate.
The three images below are all part of a parallax sequence - a given image should remain just as effective even when reconstructed. Image one is a beautiful example utilizing both subject and light as a device. Image two utilized recreating animated objects with particulate and the third is a great reconstruction of an environment incorporating atmosphere and reflection.
Intro
We are beyond excited to bring this idea to life. Films like this are about more than recreating a scene; it’s about being there. It’s about witnessing what Anthony is talking about, supporting the story with sensory feeling and visuals. Showing what the story is telling and taking the words beyond the page. We’ve done this time and again, each time with different challenges and different messages.
Reference
We cut together a string of some favorite moments culled from sources that we consider the caliber of parallax photography needed for this piece. Since story is an element, naturally we will want to push beyond just the parallax technique.
Work
Creating a series of branded films from archival assets will require bespoke creative approaches to refresh each of The New Yorker's unmistakable narratives. We've selected a range of Chapeau's work to demonstrate our mastery of techniques transforming still images into motion. Though curated with an eye for parallax and other modes of animation, we've included broader examples of our work for context and familiarity.
Google's Most Searched campaign for 2020 stands out as relevant reference for The New Yorker brand films. Both campaigns center resonant historical moments buoyed by fresh context. Elevating these moments means evoking additional visual drama and excitement with matte paintings, light effects, and supplemental animation.
The Emmy-winning Carnivale title sequence creates an elaborate story through seamless camera moves and match cuts. This piece highlights just how much emotion can be created with still art across genres.
iWatch Faces. The highly recognizable butterfly screens we all know were created using still photography of pinned butterflies. Sophisticated animation and lighting techniques in 2.5d space seamlessly brought these to life.
5K iMac Loop is another piece that incorporates vibrant imagery yet gets a step up with by pushing photos with parallax.
Grammy Museum is a classic example of photo enhancement through animation. This piece includes a stylized solve for transitions between images.
Bank of America Vietnam utilized already powerful imagery to reinforce the intense nature of the documentary for a bite-sized promotional video.
Springs Preserve plays with scale in a multimedia piece that combines stills with live action to make the small space exhibits appear larger than life.
Welcome To My World is a playful, animated story that embraces the use of still photography, particularly noted in the plane scene where Shaun White is sipping a Red Bull.
Selma: The Bridge To The Ballot. This title sequence incorporates several visual tactics to illustrate a pointed message with stills. Although not a straight-forward example of parallax, this video uplifts archival photographs by using editorial solves and dynamic transitions to drive story.
In Closing
There’s so much more we would love to explore in this realm. Every detail counts. The limits of a singular photograph are a powerful tool. A long-form platform such as this is truly an untapped genre for both journalism and editorial. We can’t help being inspired by how Bourdain’s article can be told in a fresh and engaging way. It’s an opportunity to breathe life into articles and events of the past to bring readers even closer to what matters - the story.
Creative Director: Lauren Mayer-Beug