THE ASK
This project I was tasked with creating a few scenes for a mixed media docu-series with the Smithsonian Magazine. I've already worked with them a few times and we've slowly established this collage, mixed media style for the series so no style guide was needed. In total, I created 4 scenes and a few reusable assets for the main editor.
THE PROCESS
DESIGN
I made all my design boards in Photoshop and Illustrator. For this project, it was really important to use photo assets since we're dealing with real historical figures. We went back and forth between the decision for the opening scenes and the background colors. We opted to keep it all on a white background in order to have it turn to color later on in the video.
In general, the budget only allowed me to really focus in on two specific scenes (the intro scene and the car crash).
ANIMATION
The main challenge I had with this project was just with rigging all the characters. Some of the poses they were in made it difficult to edit. I used a lot of Rubberhose, Puppet Pins and Bendio effect to implement these simple but I think effective character animations. I also added in a lot of finishing effects at this stage for ease of workflow. Mostly this includes some texture, exposure flickers and posterize time--my favorite!
My favorite scene is the car crash. I really had fun building a true scene with a foreground, background and middle element. I was really satisfied with how everything passes at high speed with a shallow depth of field.
THE RESULT
All of my contributions to the video included in this compilation
FINAL VIDEO
This is the final project listed on their website and. YouTube channel. The editor did a great job and I'm really happy with this one.