The Best Work You May Never See: NOMINT's Stop-Motion Film Melts To Address Climate Change For WWF

WWF’s Arctic Program has launched its global campaign to coincide with COP26, to remind world leaders that “once arctic ice melts we can’t get it back.”

This stop-motion film, conceived and produced by London-based NOMINT, used melting ice to tell the story of a disappearing Arctic. We follow the story of a young polar bear which tries to survive in the increasingly melting Arctic environment. NOMINT used the natural melting properties of ice to create a direct visual metaphor between the real-life Arctic and the animated environment.

In the film, as in real life, Arctic sea ice is melting quickly  “changing the Arctic ecosystems forever, causing destruction around the planet”

The film acts as a stark reminder that world leaders need to act now.

NOMINT deployed an innovative combination of 3D printing, mold-making, and ice-sculpting to create 500 unique polar bear ice-sculptures that were then used to create the stop-motion animation. More than 1000 liters of ice were used to create the polar-bear sculptures and environment. The film, which took a year to produce, was directed by NOMINT co-founder Yannis Konstantinidis in collaboration with motion designers Marcos Savignano and Jua Braga, with music by Ted Regklis.

NOMINT founder Konstantinidis said, “This was by far the most taxing project we have ever worked on, both emotionally and technically. Part of the appeal of the concept was that we were going to use the natural melting properties of ice to create a direct metaphor to the Arctic problem. We completely underestimated the fact that once ice starts melting you have no control over it, making it almost impossible to create a stop-motion film of this scale, which famously requires time between each shot. It was especially hard emotionally, as with every melted sculpture and ruined shot, we were being reminded of the devastating issue at hand and how easy it is to underestimate it.”