Cool 3D World on its bizarre, downright disturbing animations

When Brian and popcorn10 (as their YouTube handles title them) were introduced via mutual friends, they realised they shared an interest in exploring “visual art inspired by electronic music” and so Cool 3D World was born – a place for the pair to create “art, music, and more! All in 3D.”

To say Cool 3D World’s work is distinctive would be an understatement. Having produced for the likes of Adult Swim, the majority of its videos are made just “for everyone” and uploaded to YouTube and other social media channels with videos like Chefs racking up over 40 million views. When asked how it would describe its work, Cool 3D World simply says: “An exploration of sound and vision without boundaries.”

When it comes to the stories being told, Cool 3D World’s videos are bizarre, depicting everything from flying giraffes to giant, nappy-clad baby dogs (just trust us on that one) with many videos caveated by a warning: “This video may be inappropriate for some users”. On where it gets the ideas for these downright disturbing narratives, Cool 3D World explains: “Our favourite thing to do is design or find unusual assets and create a story around them. We sit together and talk out all of our ideas and storyboard in real-time. As we evaluate the shots we create, we begin to piece together the film. We then score and sound design the piece.”

While each piece seems disparate; a weirder version of what had come before it, there are certain themes that crop up again and again. “Our videos often depict rituals and feature thematic music,” the duo explains. “Characters are given melodies and themes that accentuate their personalities and actions.” However, narratives are kept purposefully vague, always leaving room for users to interpret what the hell they think is going on.

Finally, Cool 3D World explains its characteristic visual language, because, subject matter and narrative aside, each video is produced impeccably, animated with skill and precision. “Aesthetically, we feel like we have a somewhat unique visual identity, based on the types of figures, actions, and textures we use. A lot of our videos consist of strange men performing bizarre actions. The shorts vary in length – some ideas are worth fleshing out more than others,” it explains, concluding that: “Conceptually, we’ve recently been trying to make more narrative-driven work. A lot of our older videos are very abstract and stream-of-consciousness – the goal recently has been to have a marriage between these two ideals. For Once Upon A Pretzel, we actively didn’t use any human figures, and focused the narrative on a snail/turtle-like creature.”