The Big Flip: LA cool, sports-themed animations by Barry Chapman that play around with our expectations

"The core idea of the whole thing was to play around with expectations," Barry tells Creative Boom. "Things look like they should be looking, yet are not acting like they should be acting. So all in all, I thought it would be fun to have sports stuff flying about the place, going the wrong way around."

Called The Big Flip, it's an ongoing project inspired by photographers and artists such as George Byrne, Petra Leary and Jesse Rieser, who base a lot of their work on American cities and landscapes. "Their work is effortless and playful yet incredibly visually sophisticated and striking, super-stylised. Though I've never been there, I love the California aesthetic. I just think that it looks cool. Once I locked in the idea of adding a different sports theme to each scene, I knew I had a hook and just needed to take it from there."

The process began about two years ago when Barry wanted to develop his skills in 3D design. "I thought it would be fun to create a series of small individual animations as opposed to making one long-form one. I wanted the only animated elements in each scene to be involved with the sport at play, so that's why the backgrounds are still. I used a long camera lens (to flatten the backgrounds) and added a border around each scene, to make the whole thing feel like individual pictures."

Barry turned to Mt. Wave Studio to create the audio. "Their work is high-end but also has a slightly offbeat quality to it that I felt would suit the project," he adds.