Restoring the Spirit of Place

In 2022 Little Fluffy Clouds was awarded a LAB-FELLOWSHIP residency by the International Wildlife Film Festival of Missoula, MT. Jerry van de Beek, our director/ECD teamed up with fellow directors, Lara Tomov of Stories for Action and filmmaker, Nick Stone Schearer to make a short documentary in just 4 days. Restoring the Spirit of Place, a 12-minute film, was the incredible result.

Spirit of Place tells the story of wildlife passages placed alongside Highway 93 which runs through the Flathead Reservation, and the work of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai (CSKT) tribes to support coexistence along human and wildlife corridors. The CSKT pushed for a “context-sensitive design of the expansion of Highway 93” to take into account the surrounding mountains, plains, hills, forests, valleys and sky. This includes the paths of waters, glaciers, winds, plants, animals and native people.

First shown at the Roxy cinema in Missoula, the host and co-sponsor of IWFF, Spirit of Place has now begun its journey on the nature documentary circuit of film festivals. The short film doc world is tough to navigate. There are so many good stories to be told and few venues in which to see them. So we are encouraged and deeply grateful to them and to the Boulder Environmental / Nature / Outdoors Film Festival, the Wild Earth Oceania Film Festival in Sydney and the Green Film Festival of San Francisco for providing a platform to help spread the message of positivity that radiates from this short doc and the inspiring actions of the CKST to be forceful allies of nature and stewards of our planet.

LFC Figures it out for The Extravagants

Laura Milligan and Mike King, the talented duo behind The Extravagants, are always looking to explore new and interesting ways to infuse their art with originality and You Got it Figured Out fits that bill like a silk glove.

The brief from the Milli-Kings contained one request – let’s use 2D graphics for this video – and that propelled us to look in the direction of Saul Bass and similar film titles from that era. Playing with design elements, storyboarding and listening to the song a distinct character emerged and from that a unique story line of love, despair and impossible redemption.

OIFF Bestows BEST ANIMATION Award on YELLOWSTONE 88

An incredible three nominations for Yellowstone 88 – Song of Fire from OIFF culminating in a BEST ANIMATION award complete with a trophy! Also nominated for Best Lead Actor and Best Original Score. Deep gratitude to the incredible people at OIFF for these honors.

Now in its 11th year, the Oceanside International Film Festival was held at the historic, Bijou Brooks Theater (Est.1936) in downtown Oceanside which is one of only 14 California Designated Cultural Districts through out the Golden State.

The Oceanside International Film Festival’s mission is to provide a platform for media creators from all backgrounds to present their work to an appreciative audience and offer an opportunity for their art to be recognized. This includes producing immersive events that expand on the cultural and educational nature of the cinematic experience.

Oceanside International Film Festival Winners 2023 www.osidefilm.org

YELLOWSTONE 88 – SONG OF FIRE SELECTED AS A FINALIST FOR A JACKSON WILD MEDIA AWARD

Little Fluffy Clouds is overwhelmed with delight and honored to have YELLOWSTONE 88 – Song of Fire be selected as a finalist for the 2022 Jackson Wild Media Awards. JWMA is the pinnacle of nature, science and conservation awards and considered the highest bar of achievement in natural history filmmaking recognition and we are deeply grateful to be given this acknowledgment

“This year’s judges have selected an outstanding slate of finalists, consisting of a multitude of perspectives and experiences from around the globe. Personal, innovative, and purpose-driven global stories inspire a deep connection to the species and places that surround us. Equally important, they amplify the urgency of our need to restore and protect our planet while the opportunity still exists,” ~ Lisa Samford, Executive Director of Jackson Wild

The Jackson Wild Media Awards is based in the beautiful town of Jackson Hole, Wyoming, south of the Grand Teton National Park and the vast landscape of Yellowstone National Park. This year final winners will be announced and recognized at the Grand Teton Awards Gala during the Jackson Wild Summit at Vila Vita Pannonia in Burgenland, Austria on September 29th, 2022.

2022 Jackson Wild Media Awards www.jacksonwild.org

YELLOWSTONE 88 – Wins Best Animation at BIFF

Honored to win best animation at the Boulder International Film Festival 2022. Situated in the Rocky Mountains this easy-going, power festival attracts major international stars, film premieres and audiences of more than 25,000 avid festivaliers.

Deep, deep gratitude to the wonderful people at BIFF for this recognition.

Boulder recently suffered two major fires of epic proportions – the Marshall and the Middle Fork. In an eerie repetition of the Yellowstone 88 fire, years of intense drought allowed the fires to burn quickly through 6026 acres, fanned by 110 MPH winds. This fire too was eventually extinguished by a severe winter snowstorm but not until more than 65,000 people had been evacuated many losing their homes.

The people of this Rocky Mountain community pulled together to recoup and recover and put on an incredible festival of which we were proud to be a part.

19TH ANNUAL BOULDER INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL https://biff1.com/

YELLOWSTONE 88 – Song of Fire in STASH Media

Sculpted in tones of fiery reds, purples, yellows and oranges set against a dark, burning backdrop of damaged, diseased and drought ridden trees, dry lightning sparks a fire that rages like an avenging angel until its crusade is complete.

We see the many animals that live in the park – bear, bison, elk, deer, ground squirrels, fox and coyote. We see trees and scrub and plant life. We see mountains and rivers and valleys. We see dawn and dusk and the dark night skies that reveal the magnificent nebula in the galaxy above.

These sculpted two dimensional animals - part spirit and part real - flee the fire to quickly reach a place of safety if they can, some go to water, some go underground. Eventually a blizzard of intense severity quells the fire covering the scorched earth where now nothing edible can grow and fauna, exhausted from the fire and weakened by hunger, starve to death in search of food.

Bleak and desolate the starry cosmos turns from one season to the next and the next and the land rests and renews and life begins again like the primordial spring. Flora grows in abundance, nourished by the fallen ashes of destruction and animals and birds return in strength to once again reclaim their birthright. And so the story is as much about evolution as loss and the spirit that resides in such an ancient forest.

Poem by Betsy de Fries
Narrated by Peter Coyote
Composed by Mark Murphy
Music and Sound by Secret and Machines
Animation by Jerry van de Beek

Read more about Yellowstone88 in STASH Media’s permanent collection. https://www.stashmedia.tv

Light2Night – A Google Storybook

A special moment occurs when a child goes to bed and the light is turned off. The child's entire world changes. Often children are afraid of the dark and nightlights are left on to help them feel safe. How could we make this moment feel magical and not scary? Our storybook aims to hand control of this special time to the child and with unique magical properties focus bedtime into a fun and inspiring experience - one that allows dreams to spark little imaginations. Employing the traditional storybook concept we envision a complete immersive experience based on two separate but interconnected worlds - day and night.

L2N is a real storybook physical in everyway with a hardback cover and pages that turn, one that can be read to a child like any other book. A traditional storybook with characters and adventures, some that can be seen only during the day but more that appear only at night. The daytime narrative hints at and gives clues to what is to come when a child settles down to sleep.

Imagining this from a child’s viewpoint we step inside their world and change the entire bedtime reading experience - not simply adding a small element to the storybook but adding many elements to change the perspective that encompasses their world.

Personal Capital - Anatomy of a Super Hero

Introducing Personal Capital's personal spokespiggy, Cashius. The little guy who could zooming around on no less than a backdrop of pink clouds. Our kind of guy!

One of the great things we at Little Fluffy Clouds love about working in animation is the infinite number of characters you get to develop and the infinite number of ways you get to bring those characters to life, imbuing each and every one with life-like expression and creative creature qualities. And even though Cashius is only on-screen for :15 seconds he has a presence that far outlives his brief moment on the stage.

And for all you aficionados of animation and how it's done we created a unique lively and informative, Making-of intro, that prefaces the :15 second spot. Many making-of's are fairly static and to be honest a little prosaic but this one is as fun as Cashius himself who cried out to have his heroic abilities lit up in an extra special way. This playful all-media spot was made for San Francisco's own, Cabinet TV, an independent collective of minds and skillsets who love to hear and tell stories and exist to collaborate with their clients.

So when you need personal cash head to Personal Capital and ask for Cashius.

DELL Dazzles Crowd with Hybrid CLOUD

The film was designed by our creative team to play on giant screens but to also nimbly transform to the smallest ones of a mobile Instagram ad. Each pixel for the convention’s 20’ x 100’ screens was about one foot square. Fairly mind boggling indeed! Other versions ranged from regular HD, 1 x 1 square format and all sizes for print and web campaigns.

Dublin based musician, Mark Murphy, composed the bold and spirited sound track. Previously his company, Secrets and Machines, also composed the award-winning music for Nat Geo Wild Yellowstone.

DELL Technologies CLOUD powered by VMWARE.

Safeguarding Our Future Skies

Modernizing the world’s aviation infrastructure and air traffic management (ATM) systems is a prodigious undertaking. One that begins with identifying a need followed by an exhaustive analysis of the task.

To effectively explain Airbus’ commitment to air traffic safety a new film, Safeguarding Our Future Skies, was commissioned to accompany, LFC’s award winning animation, Building Blueprints for the Sky.

Adopting a similar look and feel in style we created a faster paced educational scenario to beautifully illustrate in graphic motion how safety culture works and the sheer number of people involved in that effort. Adroitly shown are weather conditions, air traffic patterns, possible hazardous situations and hypothetical future scenarios, all of which must be considered and learned from to achieve a safe outcome.

As an international pioneer in the aerospace sector, Airbus, is uniquely positioned to propel the aeronautics industry forward in a quest to create a safer, connected and evolving airspace for the future. Their accepted commitment to safety culture and competence in the field is outstanding.

A Transformative Future for our Skies

Our world is on the cusp of exciting technological advances in aviation. The speculative arena of science fiction - personal transportation, flying cars, unmanned aerial vehicles is underway. As the skies get busier systems must be devised to safely accommodate the rise in traffic.

European aviation leaders recently gathered at a conference hosted by SESAR, the joint undertaking for a Single European Sky ATM Research, to show their support for a digital transformation. Their task now begins to modernize Europe’s aviation infrastructure and air traffic management system to enable more connected aviation and with that seamless travel and transportation for all.

Little Fluffy Clouds was selected to create a film for the conference illustrating the predicted rise in air travel and the synchronized innovation that such an evolutionary advance in the future of flight will bring. Working in partnership with, Airbus-SV, Altiscope and SESAR, a glimpse of this redefined future is revealed.

You can read more about this monumental shift in aviation and the way we view our skies here: https://www.sesarju.eu

Little Fluffy Clouds as Featured by Little Black Book

So weren’t we smiling ear to ear, like a matching pair of Cheshire cats, to be featured in their article, - Keep it HU_SH! Eleven Amazing Directors You Need to Know About.

The HU_SH in question is the London-based animation production company that represents Little Fluffy Clouds in the UK and Europe. Theirs is a uniquely talented roster of directors and designers that we’re proud to be a part of or as the LBB article puts it:

“A family as eclectic in its range of styles as its techniques, HUSH introduces its roster of award-winning filmmakers and exciting new talent….”

Read the entire article here: https://lbbonline.com and discover the ten other amazing directors for yourself.

LFC scoops up Telly Awards for As The River Flows

The 38th Annual Telly Awards has announced this years recipients. Little Fluffy Clouds scooped up two Telly's for their river otter, ecology animation, As The River Flows. The Telly Awards recognize outstanding international video and film productions and for more than 25 years the Telly statuette has been a symbol of creative excellence.

“We're really happy to have been honored with such industry recognition." Said Betsy de Fries, producer and director at Little Fluffy Clouds. "The Telly Award is a celebrated prize and we are thrilled to have taken awards in every category we entered.”

This three-minute, highly colorful, prismatic animation was made for the River Otter Ecology Project. ROEP is a Bay Area, not-for-profit, dedicated to the continued well being of these charismatic little creatures. The steady comeback of the river otter to our northern California watershed is an prime indicator of the general good health of the system overall.

“We are lucky to have such a wealth of diverse clients who bring wonderful projects our way.” Said Little Fluffy Clouds' creative director, Jerry van de Beek. “and the recognition by our peers who jury The Telly Awards, for our creative efforts, is doubly gratifying.”

As The River Flows, can be seen in many international animation and film festivals.

Announcing the Arrival of It’s a Wonderful Loaf!

Take a moment to watch the trailer for Little Fluffy Clouds’ latest animated whimsy, It’s a Wonderful Loaf. Written and narrated by economist and educator, Russ Roberts, this 60-second teaser is the lead in to the full, almost 7-minute, poem.

Artfully created in a painterly style, evoking the water color paintings of artists, J.M.W. Turner and John Singer Sargent. The animation is set in a colorful, dreamy, stylized pre-WWII Europe.

The original score, which fits the animation like a glove, was penned by the talented duo at pop Tuna, Monica Pasqual and BZ Lewis.

This extraordinary poem by EconTalk pod caster, Russ Roberts, is an ode to the hidden harmony that is all around us. The lyrical verse explores the seemingly magical ways that we anticipate the needs of others without anyone actually orchestrating things.

Dive deeper into Russ Roberts’ teaching and philosophy here at: https://www.wonderfulloaf.org

Tiburon International Film Festival

At Little Fluffy Clouds, we’re always proud to showcase our latest animations on the film festival circuit. It's always an honor to be amongst the films chosen for a world-renown festival but perhaps the sweetest of all is to be chosen for your local world-renown festival, and one such is the Tiburon International Film Festival.

Often called the “United Nations of Cinema”, TIFF is an annual event that seeks to promote greater understanding of the world and its many cultures through the artistic medium of film. Well, we’re certainly down with that!

As the River Flows, will screen as part of the Marin Film Makers night on Monday, April 17 2017 at 8pm at the Tiburon Play House on Beach Street. Directors, Jerry van de Beek and Betsy de Fries, will be on hand for an audience Q & A at the end of the show. We hope to see you there. www.tiburonfilmfestival.com

And while you're at it read this great shout out for LFC in the Marin IJ written by Colleen Bidwill. See the full article here. www.marinij.com

As The River Flows

A spectacular animation for this World Otter Day, one as colorful and charismatic as the playful creatures themselves. As The River Flows follows the River Otter on a journey through the northern California watershed from the High Sierras to Tomales Bay. As scenes unfold we see a complete snapshot of their lives, from water to land, from day to night, and from season to season.

Created for the River Otter Ecology Project with the hope that, through greater exposure, they may continue to educate and work with government and corporations alike to provide a conduit between these appealing little creatures and an ever-increasing human presence.

Actor and nature lover, Peter Coyote, graciously lent his distinct voice to the project and award-winning musical team, John Trivers and Elizabeth Myers of Trivers-Myers Music in LA, stepped up to provide the gloriously haunting score for the animation.

Perhaps this statement for the animation sums up the essence of what we have and what is at stake here.

“Life in the Northern California watershed is a shared proposition. The system is complex and easily unbalanced. The return of the charismatic River Otter, ambassador to our watershed, is a beacon of hope to encourage continuing wetland restoration and conservation. Balancing this fragility is the responsibility of us all.”

Great article in the Huffington Post about the Music Composer Liz Myers who was so gracious in lending her talent to this project. www.huffingtonpost.com

See another great story about this animation in Stash Media! www.stashmedia.tv

Original MDSX Spots Win Silver Telly Awards

Seems like we're doing nothing but write about our latest Middlesex Hospital campaign. Now we get to revisit the spots that began this award-winning sweep. Common Thread and Missing People, the first two commercials in the series, have each won a Silver Telly - their highest honor.

Common Thread tells the potent story of how, at Middlesex, tradition embraces modern technology and infuses both with humanity. Three vignettes sweep us in an upward journey from medical treatment to a place of restored health where a person can fully resume the enjoyment of life.

Missing People is the story of survival. Every year 7.6 million people die from cancer worldwide. For each of those people there are countless meaningful moments missed. The talented doctors and leading-edge technology at Middlesex changed that for these three people and put them back into the moments they otherwise could have missed out on.

The Telly Awards was founded in 1979 and is juried by over 500 accomplished industry professionals. With nearly 12,000 entries worldwide less than 10% are chosen as winners of the Silver Telly.

Innovation - The Intersection of Talent and Technology

Innovation is the title and theme of this latest campaign for Middlesex Hospital.

LFC directed the beautifully filmed live-action. Striking animation and inspired VFX ingeniously transform the visuals, echoing groundbreaking advances in medical technology, by providing a specific unique graphic link that integrates the whole.

“Our design challenge was to come up with elegant motion graphics that felt high tech but that were integrated with the live action to such a degree that they supported the action of our talent. An intrusive technical overlay on top of a human in action can easily look scary. We wanted to ensure that the image looked and felt organic and that the motion was driven by the action of the actor.”

Innovation is part of an on going campaign of commercials, print, outdoor media and digital content by LFC for this client who have reported a 271% increase in ad recall and a 30% increase in top of mind awareness since the initial campaign began. Now those are some analytics we can get behind!

Now A Golden Pixie for LFC plus a Telly Award!

Winning a Gold Pixie award for Middlesex Hospital’s, Innovation, was a great way to start the New Year! Now let’s add another accolade to the embarrassment of riches for this great campaign - a 2016 Telly Award. LFC's, Jerry van de Beek, directed the beautifully filmed live action and then gave it extra sparkle with his striking and inspired VFX. We're happy to say that both juries of the 2016 Pixie's and the 2016 Telly’s agreed. Go Jerry go! A job well done!

In 2015 we wrote about, Innovation, which was our latest spot for Middlesex Hospital and part of a larger on going campaign of commercials, print, outdoor media and digital content for that client. Then we learned that the campaign had been honored with a Gold award in the B2C category at the 2015 MITX Awards. So the Pixie Award is carrying on a great tradition.

Often viewed as a quality, caring hospital, Middlesex was not top of mind for delivering complex care. The reality is that Middlesex Hospital has competitive facilities, staff and technology capabilities, but dogged with the perception of a less sophisticated hospital.

Their goals: change their perception to be the clear first choice for healthcare in their area, increase market share and increase service line procedures.

Statistically the campaign has achieved all of this and more. Now Middlesex Hospital is recognized as being, as the tagline reads: The Smarter Choice for Care.

• 24% increase in overall web traffic
• 107% increase in visits to the cancer center page
• 38% increase in service line share of visit
• 30% increase in top of mind awareness
• 271% increase in ad recall

The Massachusetts Innovation and Technology Exchange (MITX) is a nonprofit trade association for the digital marketing and Internet business industry located in Boston. Well done, Primacy!

MDSH Common Thread Campaign Judged with Accolades

Since Common Thread first aired, the spot has won or placed in every Award Show it was entered. You don’t often get to hear exactly what the judges think of your work, and why, but just this one time we did. Here, Jason Carreiro, talks about the TV ad.

“Hospital and healthcare advertising tends to be fairly predictable — smiling patients and doctors in pristine hospital rooms with a reassuring voice-over and a tasteful piano soundtrack. The Middlesex Hospital TV spot surprised me with its bold execution. The beautiful, high-contrast animation and swirling, vibrant colors have an immediate wow-factor that forces the viewer to sit up and take notice. The campaign narrative, The Smarter Choice for Care, speaks to the fact that Middlesex Hospital does things differently — embracing new technologies and ways of thinking about medicine and patient care. The design execution supports that claim perfectly. The spot is a wonderful example of how a creative execution can really make a concept sing.”

Common Thread took the Connecticut Art Directors Club, Judges Award plus three more gold awards. That same year, the Advertising Club of Connecticut, gave it three gold awards. It was also a finalist at the 2013 Global Awards. Our hearts sing at a job well done!