FLANDERS @ ANIMA (1) - BirG

In 2005, BirG made the video for At A Glance by Belgian singer Sioen together with creative studio Eugene and Louise. The clip has been travelling around the globe. Before that, he worked on a music videos for Gabriel Rios and realised videos for hiphop collectives ABN and Indigenous. Last year he was working on the art work for the new cd of Novastar when the idea came up to make an animated music video for the first single of that album. 'I started out from a feeling and I picked up some key words from the lyrics. Obviously, I couldn't get around the fact that Mars Needs Woman is basically a love story. At first, I made a drawing of a gigantic woman's leg and a small airplane flying around it. Joost Zweegers of Novastar was very enthusiastic about the concept so we got to work with a small team of 4, sometimes 5 people. It was nice to have a lot of freedom, so we put in some extra effort. All in all, we worked on it for two months and we regularly showed raw material to Joost so he was able to follow the creative process.'Mars Needs Woman The atmosphere of Mars Needs Woman is somewhat gloomy and dark, and reminds of the intensity and melancholy that was also present in the video for At A Glance. 'Yes, I guess it's in my nature', says BirG. 'We had a lot of response to At A Glance. It has been shown at the New York International Children's Film Festival, at Resfest, at Pictoplasma... It opened up some doors on an international level, and has enabled us to set up some cooperations with people in Norway, Berlin etcetera. The advantage of a music video - compared to a commercial video - is that people very easily find the creator of the video.' As an animator, BirG is fully self taught. 'Having left film school, I started out experimenting with After Effects. I have been evolving towards motion graphics and animation. Today, I use After Effects, Shake, Lightwave, Cinema 4D... But being educated at a 'classic' film school, one of my strong points is that I am quite good at storytelling'.Mars Needs Woman Over the last two years, BirG has been working for The Fridge.tv, a multifunctional post production company and animation studio located in Brussels. 'We just finished the artwork for Dirty Mind, the new film by Belgian director Pieter Van Hees that was released on January 28. Besides daily post production work and commissioned jobs, we are currently working on a concept for an animation series aimed at teenagers. Later this year, it will be presented at international markets and exhibitions'. LINKS www.thefridge.tv www.animatv.be