Hornet + Blinkink Collaborate for Toyota

It's been one month since Hornet [1]and Blinkink announced [2] the formation of a transatlantic alliance, during which the creative collective has been busy crafting its first project, Stories of Better, for Toyota.

Toyota wanted to create truly special visuals for their appearance at the 2012 Paris Motor Show. Since a car company with a forward-thinking reputation demands an equally innovative approach to filmmaking, Toyota and Saatchi & Saatchi turned to the visual powerhouse created by the transatlantic alliance of Blinkink and Hornet for their creative touch.

This first project to emerge from the partnership, Stories of Better, is a collaboration between four Blinkink and Hornet directors, two from each production house. The result is a series of films that tell the remarkable stories of extraordinary Toyotas and their owners. Each film showcases the diverse talent encompassed by the combined rosters of animators equally skilled at working with meticulous stop motion and intricate CGI.

In The 27 1/2 Year Journey, Major Briggs tells the story of an adventurous Swiss couple and their record-breaking Land Cruiser, which has covered over 400,000 miles in its 27 1/2 year history. The CG animation brings a travel journal to life through sketch-like visuals chronicling the car's journey around the world.

The 1,000,000 km Courier by Yves Geleyn celebrates a Danish courier's Hiace van, which has covered more than 1,000,000 kilometers and is still going strong. Using stop motion animation, Yves illustrates the astonishing distance covered by the pair in a meticulously crafted paper landscape for a scaled down version of the van to travel across.

Stories of Better, created by Sumo Science, introduces Toyota's concept of "Always a Better Way" in a colourful and dynamic stop motion animation bursting from the pages of a pop-up story book, exploring the ingredients that make up Toyota's latest models.

Gabe Askew sends a hatchback on a roller coaster ride through a textural CG world of graph paper in Think you know hybrid?, turning the idea of the sensible hybrid car on its head to reveal that Toyota's fastest racing car has the very same technology under its bonnet.

Source: Hornet, Inc.