An asteroid, smashed into fragments and hot dust by gravitational forces, has contaminated planet Earth and its atmosphere. Fate whispers of a terrible future, a future mankind won’t survive to experience. Mankind has arrived at a crossroads.
Terrifying but beautiful, Unbinilium was shot in and around Munich over the span of two years by designers and animators Christian Scheck and Jonathan Albert. The duo take the Sci-fi genre to an unforeseen level, where they bring alien-like planet textures and colors right here on Earth. After an asteroid hits the planet, a mysterious substance, a yet undiscovered chemical element that hits earth from outer space and transforms our biosphere into a strange looking, toxic place. Leaving humanity helpless, there is no remedy and no way back.
We didn’t constrain ourselves to a schedule and it was thought of as a long term project, alongside our regular jobs as designers and animators. Instead the initial idea of the film assumed shape over time, as we discovered interesting themes, locations and the whole range of possibilities that were made possible with the infrared modification of our camera.
To keep things simple and manageable, the guys also put on gas masks and acted in the film themselves, keeping a maximum crew of 5 at times, but often shot scenes even alone. They also depended heavily on the sunny weather, so keeping the crew small and flexible was the key, while keeping the budge at an extreme minimum.
I was fascinated by the visual oddity of infrared photography and found a way to make filming technically possible. I guess this is probably the first narrative short out of a very few number of infrared videos yet at all. I wanted the pictures to tell the story mainly through their alien and alarming look, however we felt that we also needed graphic visuals and a narrator as voice over to better convey our thoughts.
Unbinilium runs short at just under 4 minutes, but although the storyline is quite simple, the background package of it is tremendous, making your mind do most of the work, while Christian and Jonathan took care of stunning your eyes with the breathtaking photography.