Preludes 混合媒體動畫 by Matthew Rankin is a highly esteemed winner of the very prestigious 2020 A' Design Award 鐵獎 in 電影設計 Competition Category.

鐵電影· 2020

Preludes 混合媒體動畫

by Matthew Rankin

Client: Matthew Rankin

A' Design Award 鐵獎 Winner in 電影 Category

12,675
Verified Award Winner
Verify Award Status for #103476

即刻捐助 Visit Site View at A' Design Award Press Release Award Badge

Colors

The Design

About Preludes 混合媒體動畫

《序曲》係一部短篇混合媒體動畫,取材自T.S.艾略特同名詩作。呢部作品長一分零八秒,將艾略特嘅意象同原創音樂配樂結合。各個場景之間並非以單一視覺風格連貫,而係透過主題同聲音互相呼應。作品結合二維同三維動畫,以Cinema 4D建模,用Redshift渲染,再喺After Effects進行合成。畫面由高空俯瞰逐漸轉落街頭視角,人物喺屏幕背後擦身而過。呢部動畫借助一篇舊時嘅文本,反思現代生活。

The Recognition

About the A' Design Award 鐵獎

Preludes 混合媒體動畫是 A' Design Award 鐵獎得主，這是授予滿足人們對設計精良的創作所期待的專業與工業要求的優良設計的聲望認可。鐵獎得主展現出其創作者的高超技藝、高度專業化、專家級的理解力和創造能力。預計Preludes 混合媒體動畫將成為一件備受推崇、令人欽佩且被珍愛的創作，既實用又創新。這件贏得 A' Design Award 鐵獎的設計整合了行業最佳實踐，並擁有與專業知識和才華相結合的稱職技術特性。Preludes 混合媒體動畫因其嚴謹而受到尊重，旨在提供有助於讓世界變得更美好的生活品質改善。

Behind the Design

Press Kit

Credits, team members and technical details provided by the designer.

Unique Properties: Preludes is a mixed media collaborative animation based on a poem by T.S. Eliot. The process involved the poem being chosen by the producer, who then invited a musician to compose a one-minute piece which was handed off to me to provide to create visuals on both the the words of Eliot and the music.
Dimensions & Packaging: Duration: 1-minute, 08-seconds
Tags: poetry, animation, motion graphics, 2D, 3D, after effects
Production Technology: Preludes utilizes both 2D and 3D animation all composited in After Effects. The scenes with 3D were done in Cinema 4D and rendered using Redshift. It also uses several After Effects plugins such as Video Copilot's Sabre, Rowbyte's Plexus, and Red Giant's Particular and Form.
Design Challenge: The challenge became putting the many ways this manifests into only one-minute and matching those visuals to an already created musical composition. And that's how an aerial view helps to alienate us from the tracking signals on the street and we are suddenly shifted to street level view to see faceless people bumping into one another with screens blocking the vision.
Research: For this project the research fairly straightforward. It started with a cursory reading of the poem, Preludes by T.S. Eliot, and listening to the soundtrack created by Angus Macrae. I listened to the audio repeatedly to let it sink into my memory and to help with visualizing general concepts. This was followed by seeking out deeper analysis of the poem so that I better understood the themes, ideas, and symbols. While I could certainly have skipped this step it was profoundly important as I went along and was searching for visual fragments to add to the density of the piece.
Inspiration: Preludes is based on T.S. Eliot's poem of the same name and a one-minute musical soundscape provided to me and composed by Angus Macrae. The whole project was organized by a group called Campfire Poetry that uses poetry as away to promote collaborations between musicians and animators.
Project Duration: The project was started 20 December 2019 in New York City and completed in February 2020.
Operation Flow: I was immediately drawn into Eliot's non-narrative and slightly abstract form, even though he was describing a very defined and concrete world. I took that as an opportunity to create scenes that were thematically, but not necessarily aesthetically, connected. Instead, I chose to let Macra's soundtrack be the connective tissue weaving together Eliot’s view with my own as I explore how our modern world looks and feels in the context of Eliot’s ideas.
Team Members: Director/Animator: Matthew Rankin
Producer: Max Rothman
Music/Sound: Angus Macrae