Directed by Mate Steinforth at Sehsucht Berlin, Group Hug was part of MTV's 2012 international ident series commissioned by the MTV World Design Studio in Milan. The brief was explicit: move from grey solitude to colourful friendship, reflecting the emotional lives of the Millennial audience. The piece takes that brief literally and formally, a greyscale environment transforming through colour as the blob characters make contact.
What makes it instructive is how the concept and the animation system are the same thing. Each touch between characters triggers a colour transfer, so the narrative logic and the technical logic are identical. The world changes because of the motion, not in spite of it.