As the arbiter of youth culture, MTV has never shied from making bold statements. So when it came time for MTV Netherlands to draft its manifesto for a branding campaign, the team went the audacious route with declarations like, "We Allow People to Grow to Independence and to Liberate Minds." Markus Hornof and Patrick Sturm, aka directing/design duo Eat My Dear, rose to the challenge of bringing that lofty vision to life with a two-minute film, visually narrating MTV's brand story.

The duo's Amsterdam-based reps at PostPanic were approached for the project by MTV art director Ward Graumans, whose work on the print campaign provided illustrations that were a starting point for the directors. Initially meant to be a stills presentation, the film came from the network's desire to capture the MTV spirit in a strong yet playful manner.

"It was up to us to bring the statements together and form a story," notes the duo. "We started by creating motives for all of the statements. These motives could be taken out of the [statement's] original context [but] they're able to create a mental bridge to the message."

These "mental bridges" require a little thought on the part of the viewer to interpret how the visuals connect to the statement. Some are fairly easy; for example, stenciled graffiti spells out the statement "Rebel with a Cause". Others are more abstract: a cockroach is outfitted with sunglasses and a crown which are beamed onto his head from beyond the frame for the statement "Express Yourself."

"We didn't want visual solutions that were too obvious in reflecting the statements so we decided upon strong imagery which could tell a story on its own," say Eat My Dear.

The team had a fairly tight turnaround of two weeks to complete the entire project, from design to animation to sound design, making it difficult for them to choose between ideas.

"One major challenge was to accomplish everything on our wish list within the deadline," they say. "We wanted a visually rich piece at the end. Additionally, from a story-telling point of view, we had to keep in mind that the single parts had to connect to each other. So we had to plan our animations properly to make transitions as smooth as possible."

Still, having all of the creative freedom traditionally given to MTV's collaborators left them with one very important restriction to bear in mind.

"[With] a lot of creative freedom, you can be fooled into thinking that it'll be fairly simple to work out the whole piece," they explain. "But you still shouldn't forget the purpose and, of course, the audience. It's sometimes tricky to work with all this freedom and still find a path somewhere on the edge that everyone is pleased with."

Eat My Dear http://www.eatmydear.com
PostPanic http://www.postpanic.com
MTV Netherlands http://www.mtv.nl