As a studio that gives life to our client's brands, we love telling a good story, may it be animated or static. Some time ago, when the pandemic was making us afraid and pushing us farther from each other, Asociația DATE wished to bring people together through the magic of a folklore tale. 

We wrote the story, designed the characters, animated it in 2D, and designed the booklet containing the story. The awesome dudes at Aural Eye animated it in 3D and did a great job video-mapping it on buildings in the 3 cities we toured it.

"Făt-Frumos din Tărâmul de Azi," tells the story of becoming a hero by doing good. The story is fueled by love: our love and care for the environment and each other, specifically in times of a global pandemic. Together, and only together, we will defeat the virus. 

Characters' clothes and the logo of each city have been changed to match each cultural space.

The power of storytelling relies on telling a difficult story in a way that gets to people easily. The power of #together is reinforced throughout the story, since the world we live in will only be a happy place if we take care of it and each other, by protecting ourselves from spreading the virus. And because every fairy tale ends on a good note, we learn from this one that only together we can create that happy ending.

Once upon a time, a bad virus that would cause a deadly disease made its way into the King's realm of The Rapid Springs. After trying his best to defeat it, relying on the greatest healers, he reached out to Făt-Frumos, a knight hero present in Romanian folklore. 

If he succeeds, he's bound to marry the King's daughter, Ileana Cosânzeana, a good-natured princess with fairy powers. But Ileana's call is to heal the world instead of getting married, so she takes the shape of a dove and flies away to save the world and nature.

As soon as he gets the King's call, Făt-Frumos straddles his hybrid horse-bike and begins his quest. On his trail, he faces a bear that he helps escape a trap and is rewarded with a magic claw that he uses to defeat the Zmeu, aka The Virus, a covid-shaped cell that coughs and spreads the virus.

Now that the bad guy is gone, Făt-Frumos and his horse carry on until they meet Muma Pădurii, a character that portrays nature in a broken and polluted state that is angry and wants to destroy everything in her way. His shield stops her from destroying nature, and the environment quickly comes back to life, helped by the dove.

The dove turns back into Ileana Cosânzeana and she finally meets Făt-Frumos. In the blink of an eye, Ileana disappears into the Moon, and Făt-Frumos into the Sun, continuing to take care of the world from up above.

The story of "Făt-Frumos din Tărâmul de Azi" has been projected on three different buildings in Romania, in the cities of Târgu Mureș, Miercurea Ciuc, and Sfântu Gheorghe, gathering people from the Romanian and Hungarian cultures, making folklore tales a mutual language for the two. We chose to tell this fairy tale by adapting a valuable story for Romanian and Hungarian people to our context, using familiar symbols for both cultures: the sun, the moon, the dove, and the bear.