Stephen Jordan Projection 2: Tape Mapping

 Concept

    The graphic that I chose to design for, the low-poly camera, inspired me to do something cinematic. I love sci-fi movies, so I decided on a thematic juxtaposition of two iconic space epics that sort of bookend each other in the history of cinema, with decades of technical achievement, cultural development in between: 2001: A Space Odyssey, and Interstellar.

 

Technique

    To begin, I cut together footage from both movies that I wanted to pull from, and set it to one track from the score of Interstellar that builds in a concise, intense manner, appropriate for the time requirements of the project. I selected scenes that I like visually, and cut them together so their pace builds along with the music, and that each rough section would have distinct colors associated with them.

 

 

 

 The footage begins with about one minute of straight footage from 2001, a tense moment leading up to the "death" of HAL, which is both symbolic of the reincarnation of sci-fi filmmaking and effective in starting the show off slowly so that it will build along with the music and the surrounding graphics.

With the footage as the conceptual basis at the center of the compositions, I wanted the graphics to move and pick up speed in tandem with everything else, but most of all I was focused on the color of the graphics, and how they gelled with the footage. 

 

To that end, the first composition is light, and almost personal, as the camera lines pulse HAL red while he pleads to Dave to reconsider shutting him down. As he pleads, and apologizes, and Dave carefully navigates the deeply red memory center, HAL kicks off the show by telling Dave to "Stop..." his light slowly extinguishing. This portion was unique in that I used ISF shaders instead of the usual library of materials.

Blue and white footage in the second composition matches graphics with multiple iconic planet-scapes in Interstellar. I wanted this middle portion of the show to read as icy and technical, which made the Clouds material perfect as a base, as they were deep gray and looked almost rocky, just like the terrain that features in the footage. I layered this with Dunes material and the Linify FX on top. This section has the most variety, cuing each of the layers into different materials until we land on the third composition. 

The third composition is my favorite, as we transition into our first footage out in space, seeing the black hole Gargantua and getting emotional, fast-paced footage of our protagonist launching himself into it and landing in a Tesseract. It's flashy, black and gold and green, using GPU particles and a swirly nebula ISF shader that makes us feel like we're flying through space with him.

Interpretation

On this project I enjoyed the opportunity to mix medias by incorporating video footage, as well as deepening my understanding of Scenes and Cues. I am mostly happy with how the footage, music, and graphics all interact, but I think the project could benefit from slightly tighter timing with the music and smoother transitions, which I haven't gotten 100% consistent. Overall, I'm getting more comfortable with MadMapper which is exciting.