Virgin Mobile "Angels"

Virgin Mobile invites you to a world where money decides to fly away into the hands of the needy, where politicians tangled in lies emerge as beautiful butterflies, and where argyle-wearing elephants win the fight against extinction. All of that and more happens in Come to a Better Place, a campaign directed by Brand New School. It sure sounds too good to be true.

A hallucinatory trip cooked up by Toronto-based agency ZiG, the campaign touches lightly upon heavy political issues such as equality, environmentalism and corruption and is set to a killer track by the Swedish band Teddybears.

Each of the six vignettes show a lamentable circumstance turning out well. It was Elis idea to visualize the tension between good and bad not by colors (to use red as the good color would contradict all archetypal associations), but by its rendering style.

The miserable situation that needs attention — the marionette politician, the endless urban development —, is displayed in a high-contrast, hand-colored style that is immediately recognizable as the technique of choice of 1960s political activists: Think Alberto Kordas Che Guevara image, Roman Cieslewiczs silk screened posters or Terry Gilliams animations for Monty Python. In this world, all characters look like photographic cutouts (even though theyre done in CG).

In contrast, each vignettes resolving agent — the butterfly, the elephants, the fish — is rendered in an optimistic, hyperreal, cartoony style that might bring to mind the contemporary imagery of Me Company or Takashi Murakami.

Thanks to the creatives at ZiG for their trippy ideas and to Jayson for making the trip from Palm Springs.

Category:

Film & Animation

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