- Title: MIDDLE EAST: Video clip created by Israeli animators nominated for a Grammy award
- Date: 29th December 2009
- Summary: BET HANANYA, ISRAEL (RECENT - DECEMBER 14, 2009) (REUTERS) YUVAL NATHAN AND WIFE MERAV LOOKING AT CAMERA, PREPARING TO DEMONSTRATE THE STOP-MOTION ANIMATION TECHNIQUE THEY USED TO PRODUCE THE VIDEO CLIP CAMERA / MERAV NATHAN'S FACE MERAV TAKING PICTURES OF YUVAL AS HE WALKS ALONG YARD MERAV TAKING PICTURES YUVAL POSING FOR CAMERA
- Embargoed: 13th January 2010 12:00
- Keywords:
- Topics: Entertainment
- Reuters ID: LVAKZKFLLSJKHQYHC9XH3TYJAUH
- Story Text: A low-budget video clip by Israeli animators that has become a worldwide sensation has been nominated for a Grammy Award.
"Her Morning Elegance" was directed by Israeli singer Oren Lavie, who lives in the US, and animation artists Yuval and Merav Nathan.
Soon after its release it became a YouTube hit with more than 9,000,000 views to date. It has also inspired similar video advertisements for a number of international brands.
The video was shot using a stop-motion animation technique, with approximately 3000 still shots combined to animate the "live action" video, creating the illusion of movement.
Yuval Nathan was one of the directors of the clip.
"We had to shoot it in two days, because of the budget we didn't have an extra day. So we just worked very very hard. We used Shir Shomron, the actress. She was actually like a puppet in the bed and I had to move her every frame, every step, according to the Animatic (software), position her, creating the feeling of gravity, moving her pelvis, moving her hair, position her fingers. Everything was controlled, and very fast," he said.
In their backyard, located in a rural village north of Tel Aviv, Yuval and his wife Merav demonstrated the production of a stop-motion video clip.
As Yuval marched slowly on the grass and posed for the camera, Merav took still pictures of every movement he made.
Sitting in his office later on, Yuval laid the still pictures down one by one in an editing software and created a sequence that showed him moving quickly on the grass.
And going back to "Her Morning Elegance", Yuval talked about the main object featured in the video -- the bed.
"We did a kind of a trick of using duality. The viewer understands that he sees a 3D situation of a woman lying in the bed, and he understands also the other level that we're showing - the movie running on the bed as a canvas. Actually we use the frame of the bed as a window to a wider world," he said.
Yuvan also said that the clip was so successful that many YouTube users have tried to imitate it by creating their own stop-motion videos.
He added that it's easy for people to identify with the idea presented in the clip.
"Everybody can identify with the situation that you lie in bed and you don't want to deal with life and go out and start this day. And actually what we did here, we did a woman that lies in the bed and just wants to stay in bed and to steal another moment in bed and dream her little dreams," he said.
"Her Morning Elegance" is nominated for a Grammy in the Best Short Form Music Video category, alongside videos created by bands such as Coldplay and Depeche Mode.
The Grammy Awards will be held in Los Angeles on January 31, 2010. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
- Copyright Notice: (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2011. Open For Restrictions - http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp
- Usage Terms/Restrictions: None