February in Motion Design.

If you've spoken to me for longer than five minutes in the last couple of years, you're probably aware that I'm obsessed with American History.

As a Londoner, I get a lot of stick for saying that. But it’s a shared past, and in the context of Black History Month, I think that’s more relevant than ever.

I’ve now immersed myself way beyond my love of country music, the UFC and Yellowstone trucker hats. From the religious and social inequities that drove Europeans to leave their homes and head off into the unknown to the revolution, the expansion of the west, and the civil war. I find it all fascinating.

And yet, the more I read, watch, and listen, the more it highlights to me the importance of digging deeper into the stories and histories that shape us. I needed to reach beyond 'manifest destiny' and the other false narratives that allowed so many of our ancestors to live so blind (and willingly) for so long.

My reading turned to Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee, tales of the reconstruction era and the comprise of 1876. It's heavy-going stuff. At times, you have to grind through some of the stories as history seems to repeat itself with only the grimmest of nuance.

You begin to lose track of whose account you’re following, and it can take you to a pretty bleak place. But that's why they're so important to hear because only the unapologetic and unflinching will have any chance of doing justice to a place and a people that seemed so devoid of it for so long.

The Transatlantic Slave Trade!

For Black History Month, Reunion, together with the The Equal Justice Initiative, sent us this mesmorising short film, narrated by Don Cheadle.

The piece won?Open Format Short Film?at?The Motion Awards 2022?and is part of a series of six films available exclusively at?The Legacy Museum?in Alabama.

Unfortuntely, I'm a few thousand miles away from Alabama, but hopefully, one day, I'll have the honour of learning from the rest.

If you're interested in learning more about the making of the series, hit the link below!

1984 versus 2023

In 1984, Apple released one of the most iconic Super Bowl ads of all time. It aired just once and has been a standard bearer for ads ever since. You can watch the original here.

Based on the dystopian novel 1984 and Directed by Ridley Scott, the ad helped Macintosh become one of the best-selling computers of all time, with the message: the future of technology would bring freedom rather than control.?

Of course, fast forward to present day, where once you are plugged into the Apple eco-system, it can seem impossible to leave, and you start to think that maybe, just maybe, the student has become the master. (Imagine any generic Star Wars GIF here).

Matt Guastaferro at HUGO Creative certainly has a point in his parody '2023', which he released earlier this month.

You can read a full breakdown of this piece on Motionograper.

Speaking of Star Wars!

Check out this 30 second Quickie from Mondlicht Studios

Speaking of devastatingly intrusive technology.

Check out this Quickie from AIM creative studios - How will AI change the world?

(I've watched this at least five times).

I don't have a cool segue for this one, but...

This 18 second Quickie by Hiromu Oka won The Motion Awards 2022 for?news ? title sequence. We shared it on socials this month, and people went absolutely crazy for it.

Finally, this one by The Mill blew my socks off.

Signing off again with my Mental Health blog.

The last in my series 'Jiu-Jitsu or Mental Health' was published last week.

Part 5: Emotion Are Waves.

Hit the picture below for a 3 minute read (don't worry: even if you have no clue what Jiu-Jitsu is, you'll do just fine).