November, 2025
Let’s talk about this year’s We Are Playgrounds INNNNNN Motion Festival;
This year the festival brought us some of the biggest names on the creative stage, under one roof. The Barbican Centre [London] has turned into a playground of creativity and innovation. A place where you could get your creative brain cells fired up and recharged for a new challenge, connect with fellow artists and dive deeper into behind the scenes of the biggest creative campaigns in our industry. This festival is great not because of the big names it introduces [although that's in here too] but because it introduces the individual artists, giving them a stage to show up their amazing talent and passion for creating. During the two days festival we were introduced to artists and studios like: Maggie Kang and Chris Appelhans [Directors on KPop Demon Hunters], Raman Djafari [who took away our hearts with his beautiful and unapologetically creative stance], Giovanna Ferrari and Nora Twomey [Éiru/Cartoon Saloon], Patrick McHale and Pendleton Ward [Over The Garden Wall/Adventure Time], Shynola [Blur, Coldplay, and Radiohead], Julien Simshauser and Rory Cahill [Builders Club], Kayn Garcia [How To Train Your Dragon/Framestore], Maxime Manga, Nikita Diakur [this guy is a legend, he had us laughing and created one of the best executed talk I have been part of], Alex Woo, Nicola Lavender and Sacha Kapijimpanga [In Your Dreams/Netflix], Tim McCourt, Louve Karnas and JuanPe Arroyo [The Line], Mikey Please and Dan Ojari [Over The Garden Wall];
Design at Nexus Studios/ talk by creative director Erwin van den IJssel / The creative director Erwin van den IJssel walked us through some of the biggest and well known campaigns and title sequences the studio has produced.
One of my all time favorites was the Opening titles for the Playgrounds In Motion festival. The concept of infinite zoom, mixed with bold and colourful kinetic animation, introducing a mix media of styles and techniques. During the conceptual stage, the creative director Erwin van den IJssel explained how the infinite zoom came together - which started with a grid and scale. This at first simple structure begins to take form, as it evolves into more complex movements, where each shot was created to contrast the ending of the next shot. This sequence celebrates motion in its finest form, bringing everything that is unique and different into one organised chaos.
Another work from the studio that we had the fun pleasure to see was a series of short sequences created for App O’clock. A grumpy little cuckoo with a big personality, who lives in a beautifully crafted cuckoo clock - voicing out his frustration with the not so funny scripts he has to perform. Directed by Laurie Rowan this 3D CG is inspired from stop-motion and puppetry - while performing the little cuckoo’s body is still so his mouth and eyes were used and designed to bring every little expression to life. The attention to details no matter how small (we all saw that little tiny tear that the little cuckoo had to improvise in his sketch), were the highlight that brought comedy and laughter to the entire hall during the talk.
And of course I can’t end this overview without mentioning the lovely animation, created by the studio for the BBC’s Paris 2024 Olympic Games coverage. Directed by Fx Goby this masterpiece drew parallel between romance, strength and acceptance breaking social norms and creating a symbol that we all respect and aspire to - a strong sense of hand-crafted artistry.
Thank you Design at Nexus Studios and Erwin van den IJssel for this amazing talk, can’t wait to see your next project.
The Line / talk by Tim McCourt, Louve Karnas and JuanPe Arroyo / What I loved about their talk was the honesty and transparency they gave us.
As a massive Marvel fan I was dying to see the behind the scenes and hear more about The Snap. I love that the Director Tim McCourt started by describing their original pitch, which had a different direction - in this version of the multiverse all Marvel characters are having a house party and doing awesome hero stuff. They even had the art concepts created - it was so worth it to see it. Forward to the final idea - show how JVKE (the main character) dealt with a breakdown in his relationship, by taking the viewers (just as the real Marvel) through a world of multiverse, where each Marvel character relived their complex relationship. The styles and the way they connect, is what makes the entire sequence electrifying. Each Marvel Universe has its distinguishing style and the team has made sure to show that by using different animation techniques. But my favourite of all is what they did with the Wanda and Vision sequence - they created a vintage comic printed style..they printed the whole section in the risograph! Printing each frame in a different color channel, scanning and overlaying the channels! “Nice stuff”
We are led on a ritual by the goddess Melinoë with her Headmistress, Hecate - the visuals have a very distinctive graphic style - very hard to achieve, so I was interested to find out how they did it. The director Louve Karnas walked us through the Concepting the Character designs - it was very interesting to see why Hecate is designed to appear bigger than Melinoë. It's to do with the power dynamic, and that Hecate for example never looks at Melinoë but through her, and a similar thing was mentioned for Melinoë - she never looks at the camera directly, the camera follows Melinoë and her actions. Melinoë is very dynamic, very strong and powerful, and the way that her relationship with the world around her was directed, I think it was genius. We were also shown the storyboard and the animatic as well as the final sequence. Another thing that stood out for me was the way the team managed to keep the details and the graphic style of the animation intact. Details like this are easy to create on a still frame, but we are talking about hundreds of moving frames that need to keep this specific look. Some of the textures were created directly on the still environment and the characters’ textures were rendered and added inside After Effects using the Video Gogh plug-in. One of the cleanest and well executed sequences I have seen. This is definitely worth another watch, to truly appreciate the talent and immense work behind the scenes.
The director JuanPe Arroyo shared his take on Bake Off - it's always great to see all the nice things that are being baked in the tent. We were walked through the behind the scenes, of how the happy ingredients set off on a journey to the GBBO tent. The combination of live action, in a studio - built set and 2D hand-drawn body expressions are the perfect ingredients for the fun and loving nature of the characters. One of my favourite scenes is the one where we have 3 eggs on a skateboard, super happy and loving the ride - well it turned out that the shoe that you see in the scene was just that - a shoe - brilliant! Thank you The Line for this very unique talk and for showing us your ways of using different creative treatments to get across a desired result, response or style.
Mikey Please and Dan Ojari/ Parabella Studio
The directors and writers from the Parabella Studio, gave us a sneak peak behind some of their biggest developments, commissions and films. They dived into The Over the Garden Wall 10th anniversary short film, ‘An Elephant Never Forgets’ and took us behind the scenes on how the sets and characters were brought to life. The stop motion short explores brothers Wirt and Gregory on their dark fantasy trek through a mysterious land, trying to find their way home. The entirety of the sets were built in studio, and their realistic feel was inspired by the original “The Over the Garden” series created by Patrick McHale. Bringing an old-fashioned autumnal feel, every second of this short film was filled with warm colours - they used darker oranges, reds, browns and faded greens, which makes you feel part of this enchanting magical forest world. They walked us through the mechanics of the puppets - what I found very interesting was their ways of building the mechanics around the puppets so they appear more alive. For example Wirt’s coat was built in two parts, so when Wirt uses his arms the coat opens and closes. The use of stop motion and 3D mapping for the facial expressions also adds comedy, naivety, and make their body language come to life.
Nikita Diakur
Nikita’s talk was the one I enjoyed the most - someone really needs to give that man an award for best presentation. His talk stood out for its originality, humor, and honesty. Blending different narratives, Nikita walked us through his film ‘Ugly’ and at the heart of his presentation was a message about doing what you love with whatever resources you have - no matter how limited. The audience connected with him because everyone could relate to the realities of being an artist: the 9-to-5 job that pays the bills, the late nights spent working on your craft, and the endless cycle of starting over again just to keep your craft alive.. His film ‘Ugly’ captures everyday activities through unconventional computer simulations that introduce randomness, spontaneity, and chaos into his work. As most artists do, Nikita often uses himself as a reference for his simulations - and in one case, while attempting a backflip (many,many,many times), he actually broke a toe! I know! That’s a level of dedication most of us could learn from (of course try not to break any part of your body in the process :).
This is my last overview for this year’s In Motion festival, and honestly, there were so many other names I wish I had the time to write about. They were equally inspiring, unique, and brilliant. So here’s a shoutout to all the artists and studios who made this year’s festival so special: Raman Djafari, Maggie Kang, Chris Appelhans, Giovanna Ferrari, Nora Twomey, Patrick McHale, Pendleton Ward, Shynola, Julien Simshauser, Rory Cahill, Kayn Garcia, Maxime Manga, Alex Woo, Nicola Lavender, Sacha Kapijimpanga, Tim McCourt, Louve Karnas, JuanPe Arroyo, Builders Club, Will Anderson, Nikita Diakur, Mikey Please, Dan Ojari, BlinkInk, Buck, and Nexus. Thank you, We Are Playgrounds, for another incredible year. It was amazing to hear from some of the best names in our industry - to take inspiration, make lasting connections, see old friends, and get a deeper understanding of how different studios and artists think, what drives their creative process, and what inspires them today. You always manage to bring out the best in this festival, and I love that your focus has never changed: putting creatives first, celebrating our craft, and encouraging us to share what we know.
Stay cool and awesome!