Apollo

Styleframes

This was really as far as I was planning on going. Just an experiment in what was interesting and cinematic about some of the imagery in NASA's Project Apollo archive on Flickr.

But there seemed to be something intriguing there. Wonder what this could look like with a little bit of motion...

Motion Tests

By using some clever layering, interesting perspective distortions, and a dash of parallax the scenes came to life. The challenge was finding a style to the way things moved that felt appropriate to the photographic subject matter rather than trying to run from the fact that these were all 60s and 70s era photographs.

The Edit

Pacing out the shots and establishing a rhythm that felt appropriate actually took quite a bit of noodling and experimenting. Even after all of the shots were animated I was still adjusting shot lengths by a handful of frames here and there or removing entire shots to give more breathing room to others. Since I didn't want to get locked into a specific musical rhythm at this stage I used a piece of ambient music that I had made earlier in the year as the sound bed for the edit. It felt thematically and tonally appropriate but didn't have a specific driving beat or rhythm that would be tempting to cut to. This bit of ambience actually makes its way into the final score.

Music and Sound Design

This is one of the first projects for which I have personally composed the score and done the accompanying sound design. It was definitely a learning experience and a lot of hard work. Despite being challenging it was also very rewarding to feel a sense of creative control of every aspect of the project and to push myself into creative avenues that I have not historically been as comfortable travelling.

Conclusion

Creativity and inspiration can be a fickle and fleeting thing. It's not always the case that a small experiment or investigation contains the seed to grow into a larger project. It's even less common that the larger project has the momentum and enough there there to carry that initial creative spark all the way to the end. So, it's always thrilling when that project comes along.