Victory of the Sheep

With events in North Africa and the Middle East seeming to spiral out of control it is worth taking a minute to reflect that only a couple of decades ago Eastern Europe was going through the throws of unburdening itself of a political system that had long outstayed it welcome or indeed its usefulness.


This short animation was commissioned by Antena 3 Television in Romania – who wanted to draw the attention of the populace to the dormant totalitarian influences still at large in the country.  Not only that it seeks to highlight the humiliating nature of the relationship between government and the working classes twenty years after the fall of communism in the country.

It does go to show that when a country like Romania becomes a democracy, the fight is not over – in fact it will carry on for tens of years.  A country does not wake up overnight able to completely change its regime and cast off the old in to the shadows forever.  This is something that the people of Egypt and others in the area will have to come to terms with very shortly.  The battle is won but the war is not over.

The software used included 3Ds Max, After Effects, Photoshop and the project was completed in 17 days including render times. The second in the series, below, warns the people of Romania to vote carefully, responsibly and to be aware of possible electoral fraud and political corruption.

Hans Rosling's 200 Countries, 200 Years, 4 Minutes

While many bemoan the dumbing down of TV as something terminal, those of us who live in the UK can afford a slightly smug moment every now and again. BBC4 is one of those rare channels that shows genuinely challenging television content and the above is a great example.

Hans Rosling is famous for his lectures - they combine the huge amount of data which is generally available to each and every one of us and shows them in a way which is easily comprehensible, despite the vastness of the data. Here, he shows the story of 200 countries over 200 years - all shown through the remarkable technology of augmented reality animation.

This is taken from a programme called The Joy of Stats.  If you are laboring under the impression that statistics are essentially boring then take a look at this excerpt from the show and then deny the fact that you were completely drawn in by it - if you can!

This is an amazing piece of footage - 120,000 numbers flash in front of our eyes in just four minutes and the data that is extrapolated indicates that perhaps the world in which we live is somewhat different from the world which most of us have in our imagination.

Image Credit Wikimedia