Monday 19 Oct 2009 - 10:28
Ryan Staake of San Francisco studio Pomp&Clout has put the finishing touches to a 1980s-styled, neon promo for the track I Want You, by Dre Skull. The promo has a slick, Miami feel to it: the viewer is transported, Tron-style, along a glowing neon grid through a landscape of speakers stacks, palm trees, and more.
Dre Skull - I Want You from Pomp&Clout on Vimeo.
Staake explained how he created the promo to us:
DA: What was the brief?
RS: Not much of a specific brief, I began talking to Dre Skull about doing a video, and this track stood out as being a fun opportunity for an animated piece.
DA: Who/what inspired or influenced the look and feel of the piece?
RS: The album artwork for the I Want You single, created by Taadaki Mori. I wanted the video to feel like a journey through music, and somewhat nostalgic elements from one's past.
DA: Can you describe the look you were after?
RS: Initially, I was going for a direct facsimile of the album cover. But during the course of animation this turned into a bit more-chromed out, reflective world. In part this was a result of finding a great collection of old, royalty-free low-polygon models from the late 1990s, and loved the way they looked shimmering in all their chrome splendor. Also, I began playing around with environmental light and fog, which brought a more atmospheric look to the video than was originally intended, something that I like about the final.
DA: What animation techniques and software did you use?
RS: The entire piece was animated as one long file in Cinema4D, using MoGraph for the repeated models. I created a camera/light rig which moved through a linear world of objects, all with this kind of glowy, tech-Miami look to them. All the objects are actually masked by a star plane which cut down on unnecessary rendering of objects too small to be seen. This also gave a kind of old, video-game look to the introduction of some elements, namely the pink spirals.
DA: What was the biggest challenge on the project, and how did you overcome it?
Rendering. Definitely rendering. As this was a 7,000+ frame HD piece being rendered an a 17" MacBook Pro, I was completely unprepared for how long the render would take. In the end, I had a deadline to beat and ended up employing the services of Rebus Renderfarm in Germany. It cost a good portion of the budget, but I simply couldn't wait 2-3 weeks to render this piece while other deadlines passed by.
Digital Arts staff
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