Tartarus

Short Film – '22

The deity Tartarus. The force of conquest and destruction. Whatever they want, it will be taken.

Because Tartarus sees themselves as the owner of everything, as they despise everything.
Their servants—Titans—are to impose this deity’s limitless will, with no guilt or shame.
Without challenging it. It has been like this era after era, since the beginning of time.

Until now, when primordial tears announce the end of the Eternal.

We are so thrilled to finally share Tartarus with you!

This short film is a result of a different approach to our creative process. A psychedelic creative trip we embarked on with the multitalented @rotenapels during several months of lockdown.

It all started with a raging need to let our creative energy take some shape. We were looking for a project that could challenge our skills and understanding of our own craft at that moment.

There were so many things we wanted to try—both technical and creative—we just couldn't focus. It felt overwhelming at times. Then Juan Barabani jumped on board bringing his fresh vision, his deep love of art and a collaborative spirit—and things started to get trippy.

Juan pitched marvelous ideas to us, which in turn made us rethink and pitch new ideas to him (and to ourselves).

For several days, this was the process. And our initial narrative concept felt more and more out of place after each new art exploration. And then the animatic came naturally, too: a reflexive, tranquil pace that let one dwell on the excruciating amount of little details we would be animating. Also, that rhythm felt cosmic and solemn.

Clocking in at around 2 minutes, with few shots, complex designs and subtle actions, we knew animation had to be challenging but survivable, so we set ourselves up for “traumatizing”.

We then established two rules:

1- Economize. Animate at the lowest frame rate possible to force us to carefully draw each pose and set the right exposition for each keyframe so as to make the acting look fluid.

2- Be creative with the animation ideas, but don’t go beyond the tone suggested and inspired by the styleframes.

Some of our most beloved and talented pals jumped on board to animate some shots, so we threw in a few directions, but we just let them do their thing.

And they killed it. Some bold mofos even animated on 6s. The nerve!

By this time we knew comp was going to be heavy, with lots of layers, glow, defocus, gradients, and all the usual cosmic stuff. So we had to carefully plan the workflow.

One tricky part was the orb morphing into its angry mood.

The base texture was animated using After Effects, then imported into Animate, where frame-by-frame adjustments were made. Those adjustments were then reimported into After Effects.

Hope you all enjoy and get mesmerized by Tartarus.
We recommend watching it on a bigger screen.

Press & Awards

- Ladawards: LAD PLATA 2022 - Animation.
- Pictoplasma: Official Selection 2022.
- Florida Festival: Official Selection 2022.
- Tokyo International Monthly Film Festival: TIMFF WINNER.
- Film Shortage: Daily Shortpick.
- Festival de Cortometrajes Cortos con Ñ: Selección Oficial.
- Golden Short Film Festival: Golden Animated Short Category 4th Quarter Finalist.
- Prix Ars Electronica 2022: International Competition for CyberArts Honorary Mention.

- Behance: Featured in Motion Graphics.
- Behance: Featured in After Effects.
- Graffica.
- Stash Media.
- Film Shortage.
- Good Moves.
- Pictoplasma Screening 2022.

Credits

Created and Directed by Club Camping. Creative Direction: Mariano Fernández Russo. Art Direction and Illustration: Juan Barabani. EP: Ana Sieglitz & Juliana Millán. Line Production: Carolina Cantero. Animation Direction: Mariano Fernández Russo. Animatic: Mariano Fernández Russo. 2D animation: Emmanuel Zampalo, Fernando Lamattina, Franco Pelliciaro, Katherine Pryor, Mariano Fernández Russo, Maricel Piazza & Martín Lara. Clean-up: Alan Mohamed, Gabriela Bosco & Sofía Díaz. Additional Compo: Yago Lopez. Compositing: Mariano Fernández Russo. Original Score by @pan.sonico (Victoria Baraga & Juan Barabani). Audio Post Production: Fede Vilas. BTS Editor: Juan Raimondi. BTS Production: Laura Casadiego. Production Finance: Eleonora Villa. Special Thanks: Victoria Pezzoli, Eloy Fernández Russo, Ignacio de Asúa, Tomás de Asúa Millán, Chloe Maratz, Miumiu Rodríguez, Martín Roma & Dante Millán.