Ice sculpture both fascinates and confuses me.  Watching some craftsman take a chainsaw to a big block of ice and then chisel and scrape it into a gleaming dolphin or pineapple basket always bums me out a little: all that work on something that will just melt away.  It seems a bit sad.

But maybe all art is transient.  Maybe the key to art is not the finished product but the vision, the effort, and the process.  And maybe I have to get over my damn self and stop thinking every creative object must be museum worthy.

Whatever that truth is, art for art’s sake inspires.  And last night at the 2010 AICP Midwest Show, Optimus One created a wonderfully-imaginative piece to kick off the show.  This show’s opening films always try to find a visually-interesting way to present the laundry list of sponsors who support the show.  This year, John Noble and his amazing team went far above and beyond expectations with their solution; a fully-realized history of an imagined logo company.  Working seamlessly with Bonnie Phoenix and the visual treasure trove she manages at Getty, the young team at Optimus One built a tremendous film: wonderfully shot with artful visual effects and the kind of deft pacing you’d expect from a world class edit house.  They even had the film’s introduce the screening live, in character from the stage, much to the crowd’s initial confusion.

The film delivered far more than the task required, far more than expectations demanded.

It was artful.  And because of that, it was perfect.

http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=17002267&server=vimeo.com&show_title=0&show_byline=0&show_portrait=0&color=00ADEF&fullscreen=1&autoplay=0&loop=0

.

By Dennis Ryan, CCO, Element 79

.