Olympic Vermin is a light-hearted take on the London 2012 torch relay, created by Leo Bridle and Amael Isnard. Now that the flame is winding it’s way home, what better way to cement the moment than a flurry of sodden London vermin enact their own, underworld relay!
From the creators:
A few of us at Beakus had been talking about collaborating on a short film for a while, and the impending London Olympics finally provided a framework and deadline for us to get our act together. We were both a bit cynical about the Olympics, but it’s hard not to be a bit excited that such a big event is taking over the city… for better or for worse. We tried to show another side to the city, the everyday, zone 2 areas that most people live in and spend their time in. We purposefully avoided the centre and any classic London landmarks.
Motion-tracked characters on filmed backgrounds is a bit of a played out style, so we did our best to keep things a bit different. We used a tiny GoPro camera mounted on the end of a 5 meter pole to get some animal point of view shots, from up in a tree to flying down a street. We got a few funny looks walking down a busy road carefully holding this massive stick – as seen on the attached movie.
Amael Isnard designed the characters and did most of the animation, while Leo Bridle focussed on the compositing and live action. They both took about 2 months off from commercial projects to work on the film, camped out in a corner of the Beakus studio. Tomorrow the real Olympic flame is coming past the studio, so maybe we’ll go see how it compares to our bootleg version!
Credits
Director/Animators: Leo Bridle & Amael Isnard
Produced at Beakus
Sound design & Music: Aaron Lampert
Electric Guitar & Bass: Theo Lampert-Crook
Thanks to: Chris Corbishley, Guillemette Faure, Charlotte Milner-Barry, Steve Smith, Margaux Tsakiri-Scanatovits, Harry Wormald