Paul Davis met Tim Soar in a small design studio decades ago. Their friendship continues to blossom all these years later. There is always much laughter and intrigue when they meet. 

Dom del Torto, also a good friend of Davis’s and an animation aficionado, was hugely important in the process. He put all the elements together, did the sound and produced the films. They’ve worked on other projects together too. 

Back in 2005, when Tim was designing other things at Tim Soar London, Davis drew Soar’s clothes using odd characters as models. He got them thinking - as we all do - odd things. These drawings were made into a very short animation. 

Soar’s brief for this series of running films was very simple: “Make them a bit strange. Like the drawings you did for my collections way back when.” 

These animated films approach the act of running with a similar idea: what do runners experience or think about during their runs? 

When asked about this, the runners said things like: 

“Rain? It seems to be raining a lot at the moment.”  

Or “All sorts of thoughts go through my head.”  

Or “Impossible to describe. Sometimes noise, sometimes peace.” 

One said “I see many different things. Swooping birds of prey. Bloody drones.” 

After drawing lots of figures running, scanning, ‘dressing’ the figures, getting the heads right and animating everything, Davis wrote some stuff down and fed them through an A.I. voice sampler. Del Torto laid these strange narratives and sound effects over the action.

Drawings by Paul Davis @paulcopyrightdavis / @heart_agency
Sound effects: Dom Del Torto @domdeltorto
Words: Tim Soar