Professors' film shown

IU professors Katy Borner and Norbert Herber worked in close collaboration with Ying-Fang Shen, a visual storyteller, on a film about human communication that has now gained international attention.
The film will be shown until May 25 at the Cannes Film Festival in Cannes, France.
“Humanexus: Knowledge and Communication through the Ages” depicts the ever-accelerating spread of information and communication in the course of human history.
The film aims to show changes in the quantity and quality of humans’ collective knowledge and the impact of different media and distribution systems on knowledge exchange, according to the film’s website.
The filmmakers said they are expecting this film to start conversations at Cannes.
“I am very curious to see how it affects the broad audience I hope to find at Cannes,” sound artist Norbert Herber said in a press release. “‘Humanexus’ was intended to start conversations. That’s what I’m looking forward to most of all.”
The film goes through the stone age, agricultural age, machine age, industrial age and continues into the information age of today, producer Katy Borner said in a YouTube video.
After a discussion on what to name an animated film about human communication, Shen made the decision to call it “Humanexus.”
“My idea was to pick a title that matches but doesn’t reveal too much of the content,” Shen said in an email.
Production of the film occurred between 2007 and 2009 after it received funding from the National Science Foundation, Borner said in an email.
The storyboard was completed by producer Borner. She started by focusing on cave paintings.
“Cave paintings are among the oldest recorded means of human communication,” Borner said.
The film was put together by Shen, who hand-painted the storyboards with watercolors before using Flash to create the animation, as seen in the YouTube video.
“The animation is all made by me,” Shen said. “For such a one-person animated work, Flash is more doable than many other methods.”
The visual storytelling with animation was important for this film, Shen said.
“I believe that storytelling is important for all film works, and visual storytelling should be the spirit of animation,” Shen said.
After viewing the film, audience members should be able to choose from one of the three futures discussed.
Students from both IU and other universities like the films, Herber said.
“I have attended screenings in Bloomington and at other universities, and the film is always received well,” Herber said.
“Colleagues here at IU tell me that ‘Humanexus’ has made a tremendous impact on their students.”
The film will return to Bloomington Sept. 8 for a screening at the IU Cinema.