NEW MATTER

Lena Yokoyama X 
English National Opera

With September signalling the end of the summer holidays for children around the country, it felt like a fitting time to showcase a truly wonderful creative collaboration between illustrator Lena Yokoyama and our in-house animators Plastic Horse through Grand Motion – for the English National Opera.

‘Finish This’ is ENO’s annual music making programme for schools nationwide; bringing a fusion of opera, film and animation into the classroom as a creative springboard for composition work.

At the centre of the programme is a short film which beautifully illustrates the this year's composition Plant This Seed by Elif Karlidag. Lena was invited to create the core set of illustrations which would go on to form the key animated scenes of the film, as well as a variety of engaging collateral and resources for the students and teachers taking part in the programme.

The animation follows the journey of a seed and the world around it growing and developing; with a powerful environmental message. The ending is purposefully left unfinished for children taking part in the initiative to create their own ending in response to the piece.

This was a particularly exciting endeavour for Lena and the animators as several scenes in the film mix live action with animation, incorporating the tactcile illustrative elements into scenes using real actors.

The creative direction really leant into Lena’s mixed media process, and involved a mix of handmade illustrations and textures, compiled digitally to create the engaging scenes which were then brought to life by Plastic Horse.

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You can see the full short film here, learn more about our animation work through Grand Motion here and see more of Lena’s work here.

Working on the ENO project was all around
such an amazing journey to be on. All the way from drawing live from the orchestra as they were recording the piece, to creating all the illustrations and then seeing them come to life in the animations.

– Lena Yokoyama

I was working with scanned paper textures
and collage for this animation. I wanted it to feel handmade and like something children could make and therefore relate to. It also made it easier to put things into layers which we needed for animating all the individual parts.

– Lena Yokoyama

www.grandmatter.com/lenayokoyama
www.grandmatter.com/animation
www.youtube.com

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