‘Avatar Days’, the first short film by Piranha Bar's Creative Director Gavin Kelly, picked up its second major award by winning Best Documentary Short at the Rushes Soho Shorts festival in London.
Originally created for the Darklight Festival's '4 Day Movie' project, 'Avatar Days' is a portrait of four online gamers in Dublin whose daily lives contrast with their virtual identities. Advanced 3D technologies and Motion Capture animation were used to insert the players' in-game characters in place of their real selves against the backdrop of the banal urban landscape which they inhabit.
The Rushes Soho Shorts festival is an internationally renowned celebration of short form creativity with an emphasis on ground breaking work in story telling, animation and visual effects. From an initial submission of over 1,500 films, finalists included world famous animators Smith and Foulkes and the latest music videos for Coldplay and Prodigy.
Speaking at the awards ceremony at the Curzon cinema in London, producer Dave Burke of boutique postproduction and animation studio Piranha Bar said “we are delighted to represent Ireland with a short film whose content and execution show how connected our Island is to a global digital culture.”
'Avatar Days' has already been awarded best documentary short at the European Independent Film Festival as well as having been selected for the prestigious LA Shorts Fest which took place last month.
