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MANDRAGE SILUETY

Clip for the music band MANDRAGE and their song SILUETY. Complex realization of the clip pre-production, environment designs and 3D motifs.

Client

  • Universal Music

Production

  • Crossroad Productions

  • Dita Knotová
    producer / production manager

What I Did

  • Storyboard / Annotations

  • ConceptArt, photography

  • 3D Environment design

  • 3D Animated visualisation

Crew

  • Tomáš Kasal
    Director

  • Martin Smekal
    2D Compositor

  • Jan Sládečko
    VFX Artist
    Motion Designer
    2D Compositor

  • Jan Brukner
    Concept Artist 
    3D Generallist
    Environent designer

2013

In silhouettes
of fantastic landscapes
They singing their song...

Between the lines of romance there are metaphysical symbols shrouded in the mists of imagination...  Very close cooperation with VFX artist Jan Sládeček, director Tomáš Kasal and producer Dita Knotová.

PROJECT of MUSIC CLIP

I collaborated with Honza Sládeček, a skilled VFX and motion designer, who was in London at the time. We divided the shots within the clip, according to our specialties and how we liked the scenes. The rest of the crew was in Prague, where the feature filming took place in a green studio. Over the course of a month or so, it was an interesting experience of making a clip quite rich in VFX and CGI environments and in collaboration with a colleague "remotely".

In addition, there was a rather more dramatic situation during the project when we lost some of the footage by accident, which was transported (by air/physically) to Honza in London for composition. However, this problem was solved promptly by our producer Dita Knotová, who arranged a new shoot to fill in the lost footage so that the (post)production could continue. At the last stage, the composer Martin Smekal joined the production in Prague, thanks to whom the work was successfully completed/composed.

The technological complexity and quality of the animation, landscapes and VFX was mainly due to time. To our regret, we missed a lot of work, but it was still a relatively large piece of work with a very limited time and budget and a very small Czech team.

SEE MORE ABOT THIS PROJECT.

How did the whole project come about?
Previews of the concepts, preproduction and environment designs, VFX and the story...

All in CASE STUDY BELOW...

STORY & BOARD

Based on brainstorming and meetings with producer Dita Knotová and director Tomáš Kasal, I started the project with pre-production preparation. So I worked on the missing storyboard, which we needed to conceptualize the composition and design creative solutions for transition between scenes, etc.

ENVIRONMENT DESIGN / 3D VFX

The main focus of my work was the realization of animated digital environments of a dreamy fantasy world that imaginatively illustrated the lyrics of the Mandrage song. I hid a lot of archetypal symbols and references to geometry and dream symbolism within the design. For the realization I chose hybrid techniques of 3D matte painting and 3D models combined with animated fog and atmosphere effects (lights, water, moon, etc.).

WASTELAND / TEMPLE

The first location had the working title "wasteland". It was an inhospitable space that was supposed to capture the melancholic nature of the song. In the middle of the landscape I created a symbolically hexagonal pedestal on which the band was located. The jagged mountains and panoramas were based on photographs I took during my travels in the Slovak Tatra Mountains. I just modified them, of course, and their surrealistic appearance is very different from reality. One of the motifs here was the steel temple, for which I was inspired by the Notre-dame in Paris. The transcendence and fantasticness of the place was then to be supported by the levitating rocks, which are my favourite motif.

HOUSE of MOONRISE

The next distinctive location that I focused on was the castle building, which I named "House of Moonlight". Perhaps because of its white colour, but mainly because of the main motif of the scene. The location is exhibited in the photographs I took during a visit to the beautiful summer palace "Kachina" The classical castle near the town of Kutná Hora is itself a great inspiration with its architecture and the story of the place. In front of the house, a moon principle is born from the waters - a symbol of feminine energy and a connection to the romantic motif of the song.

BOOK of TRINITY

In the scene that I called "book of trinity" I work with the Mandrage logo, which was current at the time of the release of the album "Silhouettes" Its three vertical lines evoked for me the formation of three columns. I placed the book on top of that environment. The book of books symbolizes knowledge and the search for truth. For example, there is the use of the symbol of Uroborus, a distinctive motif telling about time and the nature of existence. The capitol of the book then served as a gateway to the next scene.

STRAIWAY to HEAVEN

In designing this scene, I literally copied the romantically absurd lyrics of the song "If I go for you, up the stairs to heaven...I'll create a lunar eclipse in a moment". The stairs then become a symbol again. As the camera angle changes, it optically merges into a stepped pyramid pointing towards the summit of the unknowable, the unreachable, represented by the glowing lunar disc.

Alternative epic finale

As part of the storyboard I suggested an alternative ending to the clip, where the wasteland would turn into a garden again. But we disagreed on this motif. My visual intention was of course a classic reference to the return to Eden and the fusion of the feminine and masculine principles. However, due to limited production time and resources, we couldn't keep up with this scene anyway.

FINAL MUSIC CLIP

idea maker
visual  artist
creative director

Contact me

  • CELL : +420 721235897
  • MAIL : This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

    Prague / Czech Republic
    Central Europe

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