Winding Up the Olympics With a Sweet Short Film – Motion design [Video]

In a welcome contrast to the reverent tone of much Olympic content, directors Jean-Yves Parent and Michael Moercant at The Mill in Paris celebrate the event with a lighthearted in-house short film cast with antique tin toy characters.

Jean-Yves Parent and Michael Moercant: “We chose five sports to represent the five Olympic rings and emphasized this idea by giving each toy a dominant color from one of the rings. We had to keep a consistent logic when designing the toys: they had to have a small base with hidden mechanisms and most parts fixed so that we could understand the action without over complicating the animation.

“The 100m toy was an obvious choice as it’s a star discipline of the Olympic games, but it also closely resembles vintage toy mechanics. The runner who arrives first to the finishing line is a clear reference to Usain Bolt, hence he dominates the …