The Context
A production house that makes both commercial films and short films, wanted to revisit its brand identity. Their existing identity was static and depicted a girl’s silhouette, standing by the side of a river with a school bag on her shoulders and using a pair of binoculars to look across the river. Our task was to convert this identity into a dynamic opening that could be played before any movie.
The Concepts
We saw in this girl a dreamer and an adventurer wanting to go out and explore the world. We wanted to demonstrate her sense of wonder as she unravelled the mysteries of the universe that eventually led to her “discovering herself.”
The Craft
A palette evocative of a dreamer, resulted in us rendering the static image in 3D and transforming the entire graphic into a fairy tale-like visual. The little details like the landscape, the fireflies joining the stars and becoming part of the constellation at the end made this a visual delight. We executed this as a combination of 3D modelling and animation, suitably married to some 2D animation techniques to give it the finish we wanted.
3D Modeling
Rendering the Remington Typewriter in 3D was an elaborate process. Creating a model for an instrument that did not exist in the form that we were visualising it in came with it’s own sets of challenges. For one, there was no visual reference. But that’s what made the process exciting. It wasn’t us just creating a 3D model. It was akin to building a new type of typewriter altogether.
Body paint texturing
Conceptually to bridge the gap from instrument to ghostly spirit, we envisioned using a flash of live action at the end. It involved a 4K shoot of an eye just to bring the authenticity and drama to that last blink-and-you-miss-it frame of the sequence. However, the director envisioned a different ending and this bit, exciting as it was, did not make it to the final cut.
Background Matte Painting
