The Great Irish Elk was a majestic creature of heroic proportions that became extinct some 11,000 years ago. In a short movie by Brown Bag Films, created in 1998 and set in 9000 BCE, the last of the beasts’ days were imagined in all of their tragic beauty. The film follows the final interactions of a surviving male elk with the last of his kind, and then finally meeting his end at the hands of a tribe of hungry humans. The filmmakers chose to depict the elk as symbols of themselves, near tear-shaped bodies atop spidery legs, their heads supplanted by a pair of elaborate and impressive antlers, reminiscent of the ancient cave paintings created by those who were impressed by their beauty and stature when they still roamed the Earth.
In conjunction with Cathal Gaffney, the co-founder of Brown Bag Films, digital sculptor and model maker Seán Forsyth worked to bring the beautiful the animation into 3D space. To do this, he used a combination of old world technique and new world technology.
Only nine of these sculptures were produced, each individually colored using a process called applied patination which distresses the bronze and creates a palette of hues from white to brown to green. The elk were placed on a bronze precipice in keeping with one of the most striking and iconic moments in the film.
The film is beautifully touching, although at first, I thought it possibly a bit heavy handed in its portrayal of the humans who bring the elk to their end, shown with glowing green eyes and terrifying ragged visage. The sculptures are no less moving, their stylization removing what could possibly have been a melodramatic and overly sentimental tone. The simplicity of the form makes them quite accessible and the authenticity of the materials and processes for their creation in 3D elevates them above mere models of the cartoon.
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[Source/Images: The Last Elk]