Design Storytelling

I waited all week to watch this short film via @Brainpicker and boy was I rewarded for my patience. Such humour, beauty and lust all set in one of the most romantic books stores in the world - Shakespeare & Co in Paris. Where, once upon a time, I sat in the sunlit window over looking the city while being read to by a man I loved.

Ahhh… animated amour.

This is a wonderful creative collaboration between designer Olympia Le-Tan and directors Spike Jonze and Simon Cahn. Incredibly they animated 3,000 hand cut pieces of felt to create this literary love story, with the delightful end result of two skeletons jumping each other’s bones.

Here’s Spike Jonze talking to Nowness about the glorious absurd quality of the film.

Do you go with your gut instinct?
If it cracks me up. We were talking about the skeleton coming off his book and the girl in the Dracula book waving at him. Olympia is someone who is just absurd, she’s used to just saying anything. She just started making the blowjob gesture as a joke to make us laugh but I was like, “We’ve got to do that.” It’s about taking things that could just be a joke while brainstorming and actually going for it and using it.

Finally I also adore the upbeat end credits soundtrack - Hump and Jump by French singer Soko.