WWF Poignantly Destroys Everything Using Real Fire In Stirring Stop-Motion Film
Image courtesy of NOMINT
The extremes of climate change are snowballing. Last year, the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) illustrated the disappearing frozen Arctic sea with a stop-motion story completely told in ice. This time, the theme is fire, a relentless force that engulfs everything in its path.
A Flammable Planet, the second stop-motion short produced by London animation company NOMINT for WWF, uses an unusual material that best captures the rapid demise of forests and habitats: the real source, fire. In the film, a rabbit hops across a blazing landscape, flitting past burning obstacles.
As much as it tries to escape the flames, it is eventually overpowered by the all-encompassing elements and degrades into an ashen image of defeat. The final picture of stillness, where life once illuminated, is heartbreaking.
NOMINT harnessed the naturally destructive qualities of fire to depict the pain and loss that come with wildfires, which are occurring more frequently and in greater gravity.
The project, unveiled on the first day of the 2022 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP27), was entirely shot in-camera and produced with traditional stop-motion techniques, as well as incorporated timelapse and long-exposure photography. At the heart of it was a highly flammable set that left a sense of grief in its wreckage.
See the behind-the-scenes footage below:
NOMINT co-founders Yannis Konstantinidis and Christos Lefakis directed the film, with animation by Jua Braga, music by Ted Regklis, and color-grading by Black Kite Studios’ Tom Mangham.
“The film acts as a stark reminder that world leaders must act now to tackle the drivers of unnatural wildfires, such as deforestation and climate change,” notes WWF in the press release.
Konstantinidis adds: “For our second film with WWF, we struggled for months to find a way to use the natural properties of real fire in a way that conveys the devastation of wildfires. Fire is destructive and remorseless, both in real life and on the stop-motion set, destroying everything that comes in its way. We ended up walking on a very thin line where the whole project was on the very edge of literally going up in flames, creating a level of jeopardy that is hopefully conveyed in the story.”
“Fires are not just a critical climate issue, they are also a critical economic and livelihood issue. Fires burning in many parts of the world are bigger, more intense, and last longer than they used to. This cannot continue,” cautions Huma Khan, Head of Communications at Forests at WWF International. “This heart-wrenching story dramatizes the very real and painful effects of wildfires on people, their livelihoods and the climate.”
