Art brings us together Community brings us together Collaboration brings us together Imagination brings together Artists bring us together

This project was a collaboration between Igor + Valentine and Young Arts to create a film that explores the idea of togetherness while promoting art within the film for purchase to raise money for YoungArts. With a series of 18 bird designs created by a mixture of Young Arts alumni, mentors, and established artists, Igor + Valentine teamed up with the folks at CALLEN to tell a story of a few hero birds bringing eggs to a cage to hatch and reveal different artists’ designs. The birds come together in a nest to sing and dance, finally leaving the cave to fly together around the sun.

The film’s overarching message of togetherness is one that felt vital, and more valuable now than ever. Unable to connect physically with other people as we normally would, Igor and Valentine decided to explore a deeper element of togetherness that celebrates the beauty of our differences and the coming together of people across race, gender, religion and all other things that divide us. What they achieved is a film that underscores powerful messages of solidarity and interdependence.

“We tried to subtly infuse this film with that larger idea… the value of coming together, and how beautiful that can be, not in spite of, but because of, our differences.”

-Igor + Valentine, Directors

With the end goal of the film being to sell individual frames from the animation to raise money for Young Arts, Igor + Valentine had to approach animation differently, as not every moment of action works well as an isolated still frame. As a result, they had to be especially strategic about their compositions, trying to minimize the amount of in-between moments and frame as many of the birds in a scene that could work as a printed still.

The biggest challenge, however, was figuring out a way to bring together 18 different styles of birds, created using various techniques, into one unified film with a cohesive visual language. Drawing inspiration from author/illustrator Jon Klassen, known for creating environments that are minimal yet still full of depth, Igor + Valentine made the birds stand out against their backdrops, ensuring they were highlighted in each frame. They then introduced more collage and mixed media techniques as the glue that melded the different styles of birds together into one cohesive look, while still maintaining each artist’s unique design through the birds’ different environments.

“All of these birds coming together, despite all looking very different, is a celebration that we hope resonates”

-Igor + Valentine, Directors