Vitor Cervi, a design and animation director based in London, just dropped us his personal short film Carcass, a glitchy mashup of street photography/scanning, collage, and 3D animation commenting on capitalism and the metaverse.

Vitor Cervi: “The film started as a fun thing I did while walking my dog, and slowly took me back to the early days of motion graphics when one would grab a new tool and simply see what it could do.

“When I moved to North-East London in 2021, I found myself immersed in street photography capturing images of broken vehicles and spare parts scattered around the many car repair workshops in the neighborhood. At the same time, I stumbled upon a 3D-scanning app for mobile called Polycam prompting me to digitize my newfound subject.
 

“The film started as a fun thing I did while walking my dog, and slowly took me back to the early days of motion graphics when one would grab a new tool and simply see what it could do.”

 
“I spent about two years like this, just scanning cars as a hobby. Meanwhile, the rise of NFTs and the metaverse intrigued me as a digital artist, though I found myself grappling with the homogeneity and branding of virtual spaces.

“In response, I embarked on a project that repurposed the discarded junk I had scanned, focusing on car parts as a symbol of individualist capitalism. Creating a 3D patchwork automobile from captured models served as a form of protest against the sanitized nature of the metaverse.

“The main creative challenge was to make sure the process flow was natural and dictated the results since there was no set deliverable. I had to navigate the technical complexities of dealing with the 3D geometry and used that in favor of developing more unique visual outputs. It was a mix of reconciling personal expression with broader societal trends and coordinating multiple creative elements.”
 
 

 
Director/animator: Vitor Cervi
Additional Design: Rūta Paškevičiūtė

Audio: Father