Sehsucht inject music into the blood

Hamburg based motion house Sehsucht have created the mesmerising spot ‘Symphony in Red’ for Konzerthaus Dortmund through the agency Jung von Matt. There isn’t a direct link to a QT, but click here to go through to their site and a link to the flash movie appears on the front page. Or you can download a rather large zip file they’ve supplied here.

Jung von Matt approached Sehsucht with the brief, ‘Liquid Blood’ and as luck would have it their director Niko Tziopanos had just spent a semester with his design students experimenting with ‘Ink as medium and form for animation’. From the outset the decision was made to film liquid in water as opposed to using Realflow or similar software, as the team felt most inspiration from working with the natural medium.

The shoot took place in the less than opulent surroundings of the vestibule in the WC at the Sehsucht studio. A small aquarium was set up and the team spent a good deal of R&D team testing oils, inks and playing with the water consistency by introducing washing-up liquid.

Now, I know the approach is not a new one and many film students / motion houses have created some work using similar techniques. But the results Sehsucht have come up with are in an altogether different class to anything I’ve seen created in this way before. What struck me first was the bind between the music by Fazil Say and the pace and movement Sehsucht achieve. There is a definite evolution to the piece that is based upon the three acts of ‘exposition, confrontation and epilogue’ that Sehsucht drew from Fazil’s music. I find the in-camera results, particularly the lighting in the liquid to be absolutely exquisite. The liquid formation and dissolution of the typography is again, straight out of the top drawer. As you’ll see, the team do introduce CG elements into the piece such as the human form appearing near the end, but they fit so seemlessly into the spot that it’s almost impossible to tell them apart from the in-camera work.

Director: Niko Tziopanos
Art Direction: Alexander Heyer and Martin Hess
Camera: Bea Wellenbrock , Alex Heyer and Valentin Heun
2D Compositing (AE): Niko Tziopanos , Alex Heyer and Martin Hess
3D: Niko Tziopanos
Rotoscoping: Bea Wellenbrock
Producer: Andereas Coutsoumbelis
Executive Producer: Martin Woelke