Music by Marcel Janssen // 3D animation by Arjen Klaverstijn // Project website: trichrome.loish.net
Trichrome Blue was the animated short I created for my graduation project, which I completed in 2009 to attain my European Media Master of Arts. It is part of an ongoing project which involves the creation of 3 animated shorts for the fictional company Trichrome. The project won the HKU award for most innovative graduation project at the Utrecht School of the Arts, 2009.
Concept development
The idea for the Trichrome series evolved from my master’s thesis Entertain Me: The Added Value of Animated Shorts as Advertisements. This thesis delved into the relationship between animation and advertising, and analyzed two case studies in which longer animations – exceeding the length of a TV spot – were used as part of an advertising campaign. I discovered that animation was a perfect medium for portraying an idealized version of the product, rich with metaphors and symbolism. This served not only to solidify the brand identity of these companies, but also to obscure the true creation process of the products, which were usually the antithesis of what the animations portrayed: low-wage factory work and unsustainable practices.
In order to express these findings in the form of my own animated short, I conceptualized a dystopian company called Trichrome. This company’s product would be ‘experiences’ in the form of a color. When the color is consumed, it generates an ideal world in which the characters become a better version of themselves. This experience would last only a short amount of time and leave it’s consumer feeling empty and worthless without it. The animated short Trichrome Blue is an advertisement for one of the three experiences Trichrome offers.
Trichrome logo explorations:
Early concept art:
Later concept art, exploring a more simplified style:
Short making-of video:
Later development
The Trichrome project is intended to consist of a trilogy of animated shorts, with Trichrome Red and Trichrome Yellow as the next installations. These animations have yet to be created. Here is some of the visual development for these animations:
