Yannis Konstantinidis: Playing with fire

When Yannis Konstantinidis co-founded an architecture studio in Athens in 2006 under the name of Nomint, he never could have imagined that two decades later he’d have swapped blueprints for pyrotechnics. 

In fact, Konstantinidis and cofounder Christos Lefakis’s creative venture never produced a single piece of architecture. “The idea was that we would do architecture, graphic design, animation and theatre, because both of us had a range of different skills and experience,” he explains from a hotel room somewhere near Stonehenge, on the first day of his family road trip. A welcome change, he notes, from his usual holidays back to Greece, where he was born and raised until moving to London at 18 to study architecture.  

It’s this combination of art, engineering and problem-solving that is incredibly useful in production and in the creative industries more broadly.

“I had also studied theatre design and direction,” he adds, “so it made sense that Nomint would be a multidisciplinary creative house. But our very first project was an animation.” The animation boom that hit London in the early 2000s hadn’t yet reached Greece, so people were excited about motion graphics and this new medium. “It really caught on, and we built a studio in Athens.” 

Although the precise discipline of building design seems far removed from the emotive, fluid animation Konstantinidis is known for today, he sees the two as deeply aligned. “There is something about architecture as a conceptual practice, it teaches you the right structure for approaching a creative problem and how to solve it,” he explains. “It’s this combination of art, engineering and problem-solving that is incredibly useful in production and in the creative industries more broadly.” 

Even before generative AI, the animation industry had reached a point where the quality was very high, but everything started to feel similar.

Nomint’s first project – a small film for a tiny political party in Greece, advocating for the separation of church and state – was pivotal in taking them down the animation path. “We created a very provocative, basic animation, and it became a viral success for its time, in 2007. That was a turning point for us.” 

A few years later, they made a surreal, 3D animated film called The Holy Chicken of Life and Music, which tells the story of a magnificent mythical chicken that is worshipped and exploited by society. “It wasn’t a commercial project, more of a studio film,” Konstantinidis explains. “It felt like something clicked then. We created something that made no sense at all, but it went around festivals and was a big success at the time, in 2009.” 

After Nomint’s early success in Athens, Konstantinidis and Lefakis expanded the studio in London. After all, they’d already managed it in Greece – how much harder could London be? “It was very hard,” Yannis laughs now. “It is as hard as you would think it is! London is a different beast altogether.”  

I said, it shouldn’t be that hard, I’ll do it. It was extremely hard!

A campaign that marked Nomint’s early success in the UK market was Ribena’s You Can’t Get Any More Ribenary– a wacky animation featuring laser-eyed owls, hipster bunnies and bow-tied geese. “It was a surreal collage, and we shot the animals for real. It had that very memorable earworm track that was playing everywhere on TV at the time. It was a great collaboration with JWT and a very fun, out-there project.” 

Leading a small, boutique company has meant wearing many hats, Konstantinidis says. “Everybody does a bit of everything, but I’m a creative director. Sometimes I’m the EP of the studio, sometimes a producer, and lately I’m also a director.” But animating and directing were not always his goal. Although he had co-directed with Lefakis throughout their partnership, he only began stepping into the role more seriously when the studio’s biggest project for WWF came along.  

Nomint developed the concept for Can't Negotiate The Melting Point Of Ice – an emotional stop-motion film using models and sets made from ice to tell the story of the disappearing Arctic – and took it to WWF, the world’s leading independent nature conservation organisation. “We came up with the idea that countries can negotiate with each other about what to do about climate change, but ice will melt. Time is running out. So, we asked, what if we actually created it with ice? WWF was very enthusiastic.” 

Unfortunately, there is only so much you can set on fire in the bedroom.

Then came the question of who would direct it. “It was a difficult job that nobody was willing to take on.” Ever the optimist, Konstantinidis stepped in. “I said, it shouldn’t be that hard, I’ll do it. It was extremely hard!”, he laughs. The film was painstakingly realised through an innovative combination of 3D-printing, mould-making and ice-sculpting to create 500 unique polar bear ice-sculptures that were then used to create the stop-motion animation, using over 1000 litres of ice.  

Ice was shortly followed by fire in WWF’s A Flammable Planet, for which, after months of experimentation, Konstantinidis harnessed the destructive power of flames with traditional stop-motion techniques, time-lapse, and long-exposure to show the devastating effects of wildfire on natural habitats and human life.  

When it seemed like there was nowhere left to take the WWF work, Nomint unveiled its third hard-hitting campaign, Up in Smoke, infusing stop-motion with smoke to highlight the imminent perils of fossil fuel consumption. Then, in 2024, he surprised us once again with In Hot Water, which illustrates the journey of a child as he swims amid increasingly hot water, created using precise heat control, thermal imaging and temperature calibration of 3D-printed models to craft each frame's layered hues.  

A lot of effectiveness comes from creativity and doing something new.

As the ambition of Nomint’s projects increases, so too does scale of production – but the goal is to always keep the process as simple as possible, Konstantinidis explains. The first WWF work was even shot from his own home.  “Unfortunately,” he says, “there is only so much you can set on fire in the bedroom”. Eventually, production moved out of his home and into more appropriate spaces. “For the BBC project, we shot at the Armory FX, which is a pyrotechnics company, and we had a full setup.” 

For Konstantinidis, the reward in creating such difficult and intricate work lies in its ability to cut through. “Even before generative AI, the animation industry had reached a point where the quality was very high, but everything started to feel similar. You would see great work, but it felt familiar. When that happens, effectiveness drops.”  

The answer, he argues, is not further refinement but taking more risks. “A lot of effectiveness comes from creativity and doing something new. That’s why we approached WWF and said we need to make something different and lean into the impossibility of the production.” That difficulty is not just a creative choice but a strategic one.  

Their attitude was always, as long as it’s safe, let’s go for it and go as big as possible.

“We see it all the time, the more difficult the craft, the more effective the work becomes,” he says, pointing to the added resonance of physical, hands-on processes in an increasingly AI-saturated landscape. “There’s also value in pushing against that, tapping into a kind of frustration, while giving brands more to work with, like behind-the-scenes content and the story of how difficult the production was. That’s valuable for clients.” 

While he is pragmatic about new technologies, viewing AI as “a tool, like anything else,” for now he believes the most powerful work still comes from tangible effort. “If it worked well for what we do, we would use it. I would be the first to use it. But right now, what works best is extremely difficult, hands-on craft that people can relate to.” 

That commitment to difficulty found its most extreme expression in Nomint’s recent film for the BBC’s Winter Olympics coverage. Titled Trails Will Blaze, the stop-motion piece captures the full force of world-class athletes cutting across frozen landscapes, using fire itself as the medium. The production was as ambitious as it sounds: seven hundred individually 3D-printed figures, animated frame by frame, combined with fourteen controlled combustion techniques to create glowing, volatile trails of motion. The result is a visceral collision of light, energy and precision, underscored by a powerful new arrangement of Verdi’s Requiem. 

The brands willing to take risks and invest in something more difficult, more meaningful, will benefit disproportionately. That’s the path we believe in.

“The BBC production was incredible,” says Konstantinidis. “It was a case study in how a client and creative team can approach something like this. From the beginning, it was a very brave decision for them to lean into something so difficult to make. They really doubled down and supported the project throughout.” That support was crucial, given the reality of the shoot. “It was a very unorthodox production. We were working with technicians in a remote, almost open-air barn or garage, more like a shed. It was very cold, so everyone was wearing hats and gloves while animating. This was on the outskirts of London, and there were fire explosions happening.”  

Rather than pulling back, the BBC encouraged the team to push further. “Their attitude was always, as long as it’s safe, let’s go for it and go as big as possible.” 

With the BBC’s support, Konstantinidis’s job was to keep pushing it further, to take it to the very edge of what was possible. It is, he notes, a level of trust that is rare. “It would have been very easy for a client to say we need to tone it down, or move into a proper studio, but they didn’t. That’s why most of the success comes from BBC Creative and the team going all in and committing to it.” 

For Konstantinidis, the biggest challenge and the greatest reward of founding Nomint are one and the same: the people. “More than anything, it’s about serving our directors,” he says. “There’s so much great animation talent out there, and as a production company we feel a responsibility to bring them work, to find the right scripts and create opportunities for them.”  

If, as a child, someone told me that I’d grow up and run an animation company where I get to play with fire and small models, I would have thought that was the dream.

As the industry faces an inflection point, with AI and an oversupply of content reshaping what clients expect directors to deliver, he remains surprisingly optimistic. “There is a valid fear that cheap, easy content will devalue the work in general. The brands willing to take risks and invest in something more difficult, more meaningful, will benefit disproportionately. That’s the path we believe in.” 

The industry now sits at a turning point, he says – one which will reward those brave enough to take bigger swings. “For many years, things were toned down. We became less bold, agencies became more risk-averse, and now there’s no room for that anymore.” For brands, he sees this as a clear opportunity to stand out and create work that is challenging, innovative and meaningful. “It doesn’t have to happen only in post-production. It can be about pushing ideas, craft and creativity as far as possible.”