Underplayed Gems

Bla Bla (2012)

Bla Bla poster
Genre
interactive film
Country
Canada
The 3D catalogue: film cases on wooden shelves, with the cat sitting at the counter next to its greeting.

The catalogue in 3D

The film shelves have a room of their own that you can walk around in. The cat behind the counter is the AI Catbot, and they pick real films from the same catalogue when you tell them what you feel like watching. Nothing is for sale, here or in there. Go in from here and this film is already out on the counter, with more like it waiting on the shelf next to it.

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How it feels

This is an animated film you control by clicking choices on a computer. It explores how people communicate through random clips of music and speech, with characters made from puppetry and animation.

interactiveplayfulwhimsicalnon-linearexperimentalmeditativegentlecurious

What happens

BLA BLA is an interactive animated film for computer created by Vincent Morisset with Montreal studio AATOAA, and produced by the National Film Board of Canada. The online work has been described as exploring "the principles of human communication," and follows Morisset's collaborations with Arcade Fire on Neon Bible, considered the first interactive music video. The characters in BLA BLA were designed by Caroline Robert using stop-motion puppetry and traditional animation as well as computer animation methods such as ActionScript animation and real-time 3D mapping. The work is designed to be principally non-linear, with users constructing the story through point-and-click choices. The music by composer Philippe Lambert and characters' speech was broken into short clips and distributed randomly throughout the programming, which was created by Édouard Lanctôt-Benoit. As an added bonus, BLA BLA users can also access classic NFB animated films, including works by Ryan Larkin, René Jodoin and Michèle Cournoyer and Norman McLaren. BLA BLA was produced for the NFB by Hugues Sweeney. The work stands apart in its emphasis on achieving an emotional response in the viewer/actor. "I wanted to create moods and generate emotions through an interactive piece," Morriset says. "It's quite hard to do dramatic crescendos on a website… I thought it would be an interesting challenge." BLA BLA was featured in spring 2012 at a month-long live interactive presentation in Paris. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

More like this

This page is from Underplayed Gems. Not quite it? You can browse by genre, country and year, or take this one into the 3D catalogue and ask the Catbot for something closer.