NOMINT – THE HOLY CHICKEN OF LIFE & MUSIC

Posted by Fabio 27 October 2010

The short film “HOLY CHICKEN OF LIFE AND MUSIC” tells the story of the Holy Chicken, a magnificent beast, worshipped and exploited, in a tale of Love and Regret, Art and Science, Life and Music. Directed and animated by Yannis Konstantdinitis and Christos Lefakis (aka) NOMIT.

What inspired the overall aesthetic and approach?

Although we try to be as diverse as possible, there are definitely some recurring themes in our approach. Themes like science, scientific process, natural selection, evolution and creation, many times end up in some way or another in our projects.

Additionally both Christos and I who directed, as well as Marilena who was the assistant director on this project, have studied architecture which was an obvious influence. As far as architecture goes, it’s methodology is something that resonates with us in every project. It was therefore especially enjoyable that for this project we even got to do proper, detailed plans, sections and interiors and we got to see the finished “product” in a few months, rather than a few years!

Another thing that influenced us was that during preproduction we were also working on the video projections for Handel’ s beautiful baroque opera “Theodora” for the Athens concert hall! This collaboration came in the right moment to put the operatic spin to the concept.

Which was your personal favourite phase of production/ scene to work on? Why?

This was one of these projects that changed significantly from the first idea to the moment we went into production. It was not only an exercise in style but also an experiment of a more haphazard way of writing and authoring.

The preproduction stage lasted roughly 3 months in which time we changed the design, style and narrative several times. We went back and forth several times and it sometimes felt that the story is getting absolutely nowhere.

There was one particular ‘eureka’ moment when all our ideas just came and it was this great feeling of cracking the code.

What was the most challenging part of the production?

Both budget and in turn resources were limited, by the end of the pre-production stage we had a very accurate idea of what we were aiming for. We had everything from storyboards and animatics to architectural plans and egg patterns. One big challenge was achieving this amazing amount of detail, especially considering that we were very strict on things like the golden opera hall or the chicken fur!

Another big challenge was maintaining the mood of what we were aiming for – the right balance of humour, curiousness and storytelling. We didn’t want to create something that was too obvious or plain ridiculous and it sometimes became very hard detaching ourselves and looking at the work with an objective eye. Luckily as the production begun we started working on some other very exciting projects (“The Greek Crisis explained” series and Fanta “Underwater”) that helped us revisit the project from a better distance.

Is there anything about the project you’d handle differently if you were to do it again?

This was such a peculiar project that it is very hard to say if we could have done anything differently. Plus the feedback has been great so far!

One thing that we would like to actually see happen and actually toyed with the idea several times, would be to see the Holy chicken going nuts, attacking the scientists and running away (maybe causing mayhem in the closest city).

Finally we decided that this was too slapstick and not very appropriate for the mood we wanted to convey. (but it would still have been pretty fun!!).

You can find additional information on the backstory, pre-production and production stills at the Holy Chicken site www.theholychicken.com

NOMIT is represented in the UK and the rest of EUROPE by Strange Beast.

www.strangebeast.tv
www.nomint.gr