Interview with Airplan

Pour lire la version fran?aise de cette entrevue, cliquez ici.

Ever see gorgeous work and have no idea how they made it? That’s the magic of Airplan, an independent directors’ collective and studio based in Budapest and a collaborator of Tonic DNA. Airplan brings together a pop sensibility with cinematic storytelling for frames of animation you want to hang on your wall. We spoke to managing director Donat Aron Ertsey to get a peek behind the scenes and into their studio culture.

Tonic DNA: What brought the Airplan directors together?

Donat Aron Ertsey: We had a kind of instant chemistry when we first started working together as art college students. We shared the same vision, the same approach, and the same love for what we were doing - along with a zillion other little geeky cultural references that our creative minds feed on.

T: Your studio is in Budapest. What inspires you about your city?

D: Budapest is a vibrant, historic city with a rich cultural (and, of course, night :) life in the heart of Europe. Traditionally a trading hub between the pragmatic West and the emotional East due to its river. I like to think that we somehow understand both and can combine these two worlds. Our studio is right in the old castle area, and we can see the Parliament building from our meeting room, Budapest is in our veins!

T: We love the Bob Moses x Zhu music video for "Desire," which won a Clio (congrats!). What was the vision for that, and what were some of the technical challenges involved?

D: The core video concept, courtesy of Owen Brown, was a red-blue anaglyph technique, which together represents a complex relationship and its struggles when all layers are visible. The video debuted on an interactive website where viewers could manually switch between color modes and thus the perspectives on a struggling relationship. We used a combination of massive poster-style graphic design plus 2D and 3D animation, all of which had to work together as a whole. As a result, the project also won the Best Poster Design award at SXSW that year. Not bad for a music video. 

T: Your work has such distinct style and blends a variety of animation techniques together. What’s the secret to your visual development process?

D: Our not-so-secret secret is the collection (or rather: heavy consumption?) of inspiration, from movies and print material to animation and illustration references, or even personal experiences gathered during travels. It's also inspiring to practice drawing in a different style every day, pushing boundaries, practicing techniques, whether in 3D, 2D or doodling on paper. 

T: What’s the most challenging animation project you’ve worked on?

D: The production of this Bob Moses x ZHU music video was challenging due to tight deadlines and, surprisingly in the world of music videos, a low budget. We also set out to do something we'd never done before in terms of 2D+3D workflow. I think after weeks of overtime, everyone was overwhelmed by the organic success and the positive feedback that started to trickle in through the comment sections.

T: What would be your most audacious dream project?

D: Our own Love Death & Robots episode:) Well, a dream project is perhaps a little different for each of us. Kickass title sequences for series or feature films are definitely in the big hairy pile. As a creator driven collective, collaborating and exchanging ideas with a favorite role model studio would be truly inspiring.

T: When you hang out as a team, what’s your favourite way to have fun?

D: Due to the circumstantial miracle that all graphic designers are also DJs, we have our own occasional studio party series called "BoilAir Room". Our founding members, T&G, own a hunting cabin in the woods with a hot tub - shooting air rifles at empty beer cans is definitely a fun way to get our minds off the daily grind in the studio. Especially since the beer cans have to be emptied first.

T: Why "Airplan" as a name?

D: This is actually quite a funny story. We had a few name options, but somehow we always ended up with Leslie Nielsen's Airplane!, a parody of the original Airport '77. Then we dropped the rest and went with Airplan - which ultimately stands for A Plan, or the most popular belief, 'our ideas (plans) born out of thin air'. A bunch of nonsense, really, but it grew on us.

T: If you had to animate comedy or horror for the rest of your life, which would you pick?

D: Like a horror-comedy? Totally down for that, that's exactly What We Do In The Shadows anyways. 

To check out more of Airplan's work, click here.