Hopefields

Here are some pictures of tests I've done recently with Trapcode Mir. I'm using the two bend's found under Geometry and combining with the two other bend's found under Fractal and the Repeater using a rainbow coloured texture. Pretty spaced-out patterns! They remind me of images that pop up during meditation. You can get the AEP and play around with it (AE CS 5.5): Hopefields.aep

TRAPCODE MIR v2 OPEN BETA

Trying something new - a PUBLIC beta! That means anyone can participate. Well, you need to own Mir 1.0 or be stuck in demo mode with the red X.

Check it out in the brand new BETA section to the right in the top menu above!

David Bowie / LOVE IS LOST / Hello Steve Reich Mix

An amazing track, an amazing video!

James Murphy's (formerly LCD Soundsystem) fantastic remix of David Bowie's LOVE IS LOST gets a super-edgy, glitchy, introspective, just beautiful video directed by Barnaby Roper. The remix works partly as an homage to Steve Reich's "Clapping Music" and the video starts out with visuals of hands clapping laid out in different symmetric compositions. Both music and video can be observed in its move from analog to digital.

Harry Martis ("denial of service") did some loveley CGI work, partly using Trapcode plug-ins in After Effects. Martis notes:

"Sound Keys handled all of the audio reaction throughout the particle and sound-reactive bits. Totally invaluable tool! I also used Form for some of the particle work on the second section (utilising the .obj import capability) and MIR (with the DoF trick) for the obvious fractal landscape traveling. Particular is used throughout most pieces for ambient particle effects & atmospherics." 

Martis notes on the project:

"I was recently given the opportunity to work on a 'taboo' project of sorts. so... here's goes.. lots & lots of intense sound-reactive particle work and utter worship of the glitch. be it displacement. as well as, old-fashioned hand-made data-moshing. my sincere thanks to all these wonderful people stateside! this has been the smoothest collaboration i have ever had so far."

At a certain point in the track Murphy ingeniously brings in some sounds from Ashes to Ashes and Roper responds by bringing in the iconic image of Bowie into the glitchy beautiful mess. 

As a long-time Bowie fan it's an honor to be able to feature this work of art in the Trapcode Gallery. It's an honor that my software was used in its production. I think both the music and video are amazing. It is an homage to the past whilst pointing to the future, a move to understand the present. It is a complete work in my opinion. Kudos to all involved!

Full Credits 

Label: ISO / RCA Records
Production Company: Black Dog Films
Director: Barnaby Roper
Executive Producer: Coleen Haynes
DP: Santiago Gonzalez
Assistant Camera: Tim Romero
DIT: Dai Yoshida and Nick McCann
Lighting Assistant: Christian Larsen
Producer: Richard Hutchins
Production Manager: Doug McCafferty
Director Rep @ Cadence NY: Neil Cooper

Editorial: Modern Post NYC
Editor: Matt Nee
Producer: Seema Naik

Post Production: Industrial Color
Animators: Joe White, Boris Coyere
3D Scanning: Direct Dimensions
CGI Artists: Geoffrey Pons, Harry Martis
CGI Artists: Stephen Hallquist and Sam Blalark
Producer: James Demetri

Models: Dorothea Barth-Jorgensen @ Elite NYC, Reid Prebenda @ Wilhelmina Men
Hair/Make-up: Valery Gherman @ Art Department

BELLS MUSIC VIDEO by Stuart Sinclair

Stunning music video for Suns "Bells" by Stuart Sinclair.  A psychedelic journey into space and magnificent sound-synced particles.

Sinclair notes:

In the Summer of 2013 Suns approached me with the idea of developing a music video for their track 'Bells' and upon listening to the track -which I loved- I immediately had thoughts of an astronaut travelling alone through space. With this initial image in mind I began experimenting with various visual effects using After Effects.

I used two AE plugins: Plexus 2.0 and Trapcode Form, I started to develop my ideas which involved generating the thin line aesthetic and dots that I was after. The majority of the 3D models used in the video are based on real objects from Space; the Hubble Space Telescope, Progress and Voyager 1. The planets and moons in the video are generated using NASA imagery, and helped to create a formal aspect to an otherwise abstract piece. Once I'd settled on the visual look for the piece, I began to think about how the structure will be developed in relation to the journey of the astronaut and the emotion of the track.

It was a pleasure to work with Suns on this project.
For more on suns go to facebook.com/sunsofficial

Stuart Sinclair: www.stusinclair.com

On using Trapcode plug-ins, Sinclair notes:

I used the .obj feature of Trapcode Form which I had not fully explored before (and it's much faster to render than Plexus). It was very experimental project, I had a lot of 3D models of various space objects that I played with in Cinema 4D and then used the .obj to generate the shape of the Trapcode Form particles. The other method was to use Z-displacement for the planets and moons that I got from NASA (a bit like the Radiohead video "House of Cards"). I also used Sound Keys to sync particle movement/scale with sound.

FORM GIFs

I made some animated GIFs with Form. Here is the AEP.