This year at Cannes we wanted to create something new, something different that best demonstrates The Mill capabilities. We wanted something that is quite unexpected and surprising as well as entertaining and useful! We decided to look for a connection between the event in Cannes, The Mill and what we do. nnWe came up with ‘Time’, literally… ‘Time’!nnThe inspiration behind the project by The Mill’s Design, Motion Graphics, and Digital teams was to create a hybrid cross media platform piece of work which represents The Mill’s digital offering, and also focuses on our ability to create outstanding design, motion graphics and VFX-work.nnSo ‘Time’ explores and references actual time as a concept over four screens throughout the duration of the Festival. The clock-like elements and graphical representations of time are interwoven with abstract clips and actual clocks where one animation can trigger the next one. Some of the clocks are easily recognisable, others… you’ll need to stare at them for a while!nnThe time-based aspect of the project creates a grid – clockwork – in which the content will play out. The clock runs over all 4 screens with each panel representing a different aspect of time, dividing it into days, hours, minutes and seconds, centiseconds or milliseconds. nnWe managed to create around 45 uniquely different clock-type-animations with many more in the works… nn
‘Time’ a video installation for Cannes Lions 2011 by The Mill from The Mill Visual Effects Studio on Vimeo.
Nils Kloth, Head of After Effects at The Mill explains: “We (the Design and Motion-Design departments) developed the idea – always in close collaboration with our Digital team and the guys from Beam to ensure that what we wanted to attempt was feasible. We eventually found a way to work around the things we couldn’t do without cutting back on the design, aesthetics and technical developments. The project in its raw form is a clock, which has to display the time accurately every step of the way.nn”We also made use of Beam’s incredible scheduling system, which was designed to distribute video content worldwide and built a flash-based application for the real time clock functionality. The system now cuts back between more abstract video content and the flash-clock at regular intervals. It was a great experience with a lot of talented people contributing.”nnTony Volpe our Digital Team’s Creative Technologist explains: “On the Digital side we created a template that ensured we could create clocks that required programming to be millisecond perfect, without having to program it themselves. In many cases the creative was also able to alter the structure of the template to fit many different needs.”nnLuke Colson, Head of Mill Studio tells us: “It’s a great departure from our usual Cannes films approach, and really sets a new benchmark for future installation projects. We hope to offer this project out to the creative world in the not too distant future… it’ll be exciting to see where it ends up in 12 months!”nnIf you are in Cannes why not ‘make time’ and check out The Mill’s installation in the entrance of the Palais!nn
‘Time’ by The Mill plays out at Cannes 2011 from The Mill Visual Effects Studio on Vimeo.
Tick tock, tick tock!
