this stop motion video documents four years of a DJ's life in one minute

brothers and brazil-based film directors, sergio and gabriel twardowski, have shared this stop motion video that captures life on tour with DJ alok. since 2016, the pair has accompanied the DJ around the world to capture material for his advertising and music videos. then, during COVID-19 quarantine in brazil, they decided to organize four years of files, leading to the creation of this project.

images courtesy of sergio twardowski & gabriel twardowski 

to make the video, sergio and gabriel searched through 900 hours of images looking for similar characteristics between the clips. in this two-month study, they identified a geographical and photographic pattern in the shows: the artist was always in the same positions and their camera movements were very similar. so, the ‘alok memories project’ was born and became a gift for the artist and for fans who are missing his shows.

when they had the film ready, it didn’t give them the feeling they wanted. their solution was to bring a ‘material’ texture layer. so they printed all the frames on A3 sheets of the cheapest paper. they bought a cutting base and made a template for the sheet to fit so they wouldn’t need to find the position again in the printed material. just insert the sheet, cut and paste. as the paper used was simple, they sanded the edges to give a printed photo paper look.

finally, the stop motion took 6 days. they used the panasonic lumix GH5s, the same camera that they recorded most of the scenes. they connected the camera to the lumix tether that enabled them to do all the setup and take pictures using the computer. altogether, they had more than 100 working days between pre-production and completion, more than 1000 impressions between tests, failures and successes.

with audio leads mateus polati and jimmy gressler, the team decided to use classical music to tie the film together. they chose the 3rd movement in the series ‘four seasons’ by vivaldi, dedicated to spring and moments of renewal, and in keeping with the energetic pace of the stop motion.

project info:

project name: alok memories

directed by: sergio twardowski & gabriel twardowski

sound design: mateus polati & jimmy gressler

designboom has received this project from our ‘DIY submissions‘ feature, where we welcome our readers to submit their own work for publication. see more project submissions from our readers here.

edited by: lynne myers | designboom