Mo was commissioned as part of Lights Up 2021, our programme of online art. Five artists were paid £500 to create new work. Find out more.
I was aiming to do a film that is Abstract/Narrative (the characters and the paint represent the narrative side, the lines and shapes represent the abstract side of the film). The characters have no gender – they are used to show the concept of separation, anxiety and the fear of revealing one’s true identity.
As this is my first time to do something like this, I was going for a minimalistic style when it comes to the set/movement/puppet design (which was inspired by Picasso ) as it would help speed the process.
I started by defining the narrative points within the music then started drawing in the storyboard Lines and shapes to add contrast within the frame, later I added the characters to create lines that goes between them which forms an imaginary shape/lines such as a triangle between the 3 characters or a diagonal line between the 2 characters.
And at the end added acrylic paint animation which represents the narrative side of the story without saying or doing anything by just using colors that are changing, blending in a constant movement with lines and shapes building within them that goes with the music at the climax. Helping the whole film go from Dark to over exposed white with the change within the characters which represents the twist.
About Mo
Mo is a stop-motion animator/director. In Egypt 2014, he started experimenting with stop-motion animation without any prior knowledge in animation.
Later he travelled to Spain in 2015 to do his masters in Stop-motion animation and to learn more about it. Afterwards He started working as a freelancer on short films and video commissions, later in 2018 he moved to Bristol,UK after beng selected for the Aardman’s 3 months intensive course specialised in character animation.
After graduation he worked on the LA BAFTA nominated Stop-motion short ( Meow or Never), TV idents for TKMaxx/Homesense, and kids tv series Shaun the sheep and Les Kiwis in France.
By 2019 he moved to Reading where he is trying to build his own Stop-motion studio and where he joined the 12 artists at home program by Jelly Reading during the first Lockdown.
