Get the Lowdown on Ars Thanea’s Mouthwatering Animation ‘Dribble’
For our most recent #ConceptDo video, titled ‘Dribble’, we wanted to explore fluidity — to create a piece where the flow and movement of liquid propels the narrative and provides a backdrop and theme to the action.
To get to this point, we looked at our surroundings for inspiration. The organic world provides infinite possibilities to video artists, and for this project it taught us everything we needed to know about the physics of liquid — how it behaves and reacts. Our video set about trying to tame this most powerful element in some way.
The overall theme of the piece, liquid, also presented an opportunity for us to explore random processes with fluid dynamics generation scripts, enabling us to create new textures and find novel ways of making all this sync with the dancers. The idea was for us to use the hardware and software to create a simulation engine that would successfully mimic the movement of water to drive the story.
To accomplish this, we predominantly used 3DS Max for modeling, AfterEffects to nail those tidal liquid movements, and PremierePro to refine the whole piece. The main challenges were found in taming the fluid physics system so that the effect was as natural as possible. The Concept D 7 Ezel was able to handle this though, and give us a high level of control.
Ultimately, what we are left with, is a synchronized piece that reflects the similarities between dance and the physics of liquids.
As this was a new form of movement to work on for us, we did not want to impose a style on what we did or govern the outcome too sternly. In fact, this would be a general rule of thumb and a piece of advice we’d share with other creatives; try something new and experiment — the result of a random effect will totally surprise you.
Ultimately, we hope ‘Dribble’ conveys the idea that nature has a huge potential for amazing ready-made ideas. The task for the creative is to link these ideas together in clever ways. Perhaps ‘Dribble’, then, will have a trickle-down effect of inspiration to whoever sees it.
