The Story of Time

… as brought to you by Rolex, with the help of incredible model animation.

This incredible infomercial, brought to you by Rolex, bagged several global awards. Its subject is nothing less ambitious than the whole history of humankind’s measurement of time: millennia that are here compressed into ten stylish minutes with the help of great model animation.

Dutch director Jan Coolen, like several colleagues at the plucky Signal Film Unit (based in Egham, Surrey), was a protégé of Puppetoon pioneer George Pal. The Story of Time is not only their masterpiece but a distinctive highlight of both post-war British animation and post-war sponsored filmmaking.