Nomint creates 500 polar bear ice sculptures for WWF’s melting stop-motion animation

Conceived and produced by London-based Nomint, a combination of 3D printing, mould-making, ice-sculpting, and 1000 liters of ice has been used to tell the tale of a polar bear and its environment. The film took a year to produce and was directed by Nomint co-founder Yannis Konstantinidis in collaboration with motion designers Marcos Savignano and Jua Braga, and music by Ted Regklis.

The campaign for WWF’s Arctic Programme shows one young polar bear trying to survive in an increasingly melting Arctic environment. Arctic sea ice melts quickly in the film, as is happening in real life right now, “changing the Arctic ecosystems forever, causing destruction around the planet,” as WWF homes in. The film’s goal is to act as a reminder to world leaders that they must take legitimate action as they continue to meet at this year’s Cop26 conference, widely cited as the most important conference of our lifetimes.

Andrea Norgen of WWF’s Arctic Programme maintains that “the climate crisis and the devastating effects it has on the Arctic and the rest of the world are not new,” this way of “communicating the urgency of world leaders to limit global warming within 1.5°C is.”

Konstantinidis adds that this was “by far the most taxing project” Nomint has ever worked on, “both emotionally and technically.” Part of the appeal, the founder continues, was that the animation team was to use “the natural melting properties of ice to create a direct metaphor to the Arctic problem.” The team, however, completely underestimated the fact that once ice starts melting you have no control over it, “making it almost impossible to create a stop-motion film of this scale, which famously requires time between each shot.” The film was also an emotional project, as with “every melted sculpture and ruined shot,” the team was reminded of the “devastating issue at hand and how easy it is to underestimate it.”