Love this! The winner of a nationwide animation competition for Channel 4 and Red Bull is Nottingham Trent University student Ben Hennessy.

Third year graphic design student won the student prize in the ‘Stop-motion’ category of the competition for his untitled innovative tale of a squirrel making good use of the energy drink’s cans. CUTE!!

RedBull Canimation from Ben Hennessy on Vimeo.

The animations submitted to the Red Bull Canimation competition were judged by a public vote before being put in front of a panel of top industry professionals, and the winners were announced at Empire in London’s Leicester Square on last month.

Ben commented: “I wanted to use a character that relates to Red Bull as a brand and after reading that squirrels get a big adrenaline rush from dogs chasing them up trees I thought they were ideal to base my film on.

“The rest of my idea came about by taking the can apart. Looking at each section of the can I thought about what I could turn it into. When I saw the curved sheet of metal I instantly thought about skateboarding and knew that Red Bull works with skateboarders so thought it would fit in perfectly with the brand.”

Ben’s animation was screened on Channel 4 earlier this month, and he will be joining Aardman, of Wallace and Gromit fame, for a month long placement.

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