Viktoria Gnatenko
Wave-Off
Animation
2021
Autodesk Maya, After Effects, Substance Painter
Wave-Off is a satirical 3D animated infomercial for an anti-5G cream, meant to raise people’s awareness of fake news and conspiracies. The animation plays out as a professional-looking commercial that delivers the facts about the dangers of the 5G internet and sells the product needed to protect against it. The intent of the animation is to satirize the gullibility of consumers and has a dual purpose of making a statement against the predatory capitalist misinformation perpetrated by the media. It is presented in a form of an infomercial because the media picks and chooses which information to deliver and what manner it is delivered in, often misguiding the public with fake news and false information. The reason I chose to make a satirical animation was to emphasize how ridiculous some information seen on the media is, and how readily people believe in it. My work was inspired by a popular 3D animator, Mike Winkelmann, who often ridicules the media and the government in his work through humorous 3D animations, exposing the darkness hidden behind the seemingly innocent surface of popular culture and mass media. Wave-Off parodies professional infomercials and targets the viewers to stop taking the information they learn through mass media at face value and to start questioning what they hear and see on the media.