Jan 2, 2016

Moss Collective's “Forest 500” Animates the Reality of Rainforest Destruction

Can 500 companies, investors and governments halt the deforestation that is threatening the planet with a serious but alarming animation?

Yes or no, Moth Collective intends to try with “Forest 500,” an animated short produced for the Global Canopy Programme's initiative of the same name, which has become Earth's first rainforest rating agency:

Moth's ” Forest 500” deftly and cleverly shows, in just two minutes, humanity's deadly appetite for food and products (and deregulated supply chains) created by runaway deforestation, and how that process chokes the sky and inhibits the ability of tropical forests to absorb much needed carbon dioxide and other pollutants:

In a short 2 The film cleverly and succinctly explains in just two minutes how the process is choking the sky and inhibiting the ability of tropical forests to absorb the carbon dioxide and other pollutants they need. [Two films are also featured in the film: “Planet Under Pressure,” released earlier this year, and “The Amazonia Security Agenda,” released in 2013. This time around,” he said, ”we're targeting a much broader audience. It asks people to pay attention to their daily habits and consider that the products they use are part of the problem, but ultimately points out that it is the more powerful elements of our world that can really change things”

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Founded in 2010 by Prosser, Daniel Chester, and Marie-Margot Tsakiri-Skanatowicz, all graduates of the Royal College of Art, the London-based Moss Collective has been featured in The New York Times, Al Gore's Climate Reality Project, among others, and has patiently made a name for itself with a series of animated shorts for the New York Times and Al Gore's Climate Reality Project.

“It started as a place where we could filter interesting projects in our spare time outside of our day jobs,” Prosser said, adding that Moth is currently working on a series of projects to be released early next year, including a science fiction short. Instead of putting pressure on ourselves to grow right away, we've been slowly building momentum over the past five years.” Since May of this year, we have been operating as a full-time studio.”

Moth Collective has shortened its schedule for Forest 500. It also allowed the dynamic and vibrant color palette to function in an organic and nostalgic way.

“We also used cardboard textures and a ‘screen print’ look. There was quite a mix of vector and hand-drawn elements.”

All of it comes together in an informative short film that takes the seemingly dizzyingly complex issues of global deforestation and rapid global warming and replaces them with the very simple issues of life and death. Over the course of more than five years of building a collection of work on these issues, they have deepened their knowledge of these existential questions.

But they are artists first and foremost, Prosser says. It is worth noting that “we are not activists, we are directors, animators, and designers.