You might have seen this beautiful, stop-motion Japanese music video of the song “Katachi“ by Shugo Tokumaru  running around the interwebs. It features 2,000 silhouettes cut with the help of a CNC router.

Yesterday I connected with the Polish director/animator team, Kijek / Adamski that made the film. Here’s how they did it: 

• Shapes were designed, created, and animated using both Adobe After Effects and Adobe Illustrator.
• My-Art Reklama Wizualna in Warsaw cut the shapes from 5mm sheets of poly vinyl chloride (PVC) with computer-controlled plotter.
• Shapes were painted when necessary and removed from the sheet and set one by one on the floor (mounted with double-sided tape or glue).

Then they shot it. On their knees. From Kijek / Adamski:

One picture was taken after each single shape was added to the scene. The camera was retreating 5mm each time – the exact thickness of each element.  Due to a tight budget the camera was mounted on very simply dolly without tracks, so we had to be really cautious with it.  Final footage is at 12,5 frames per second.

At the end the whole structure was about 10 meters long.