Nirvana

Project Overview

Nirvana is our manifesto of mindfulness.

We live in this hectic world and we forget the little moments, the purpose of the things we do, and we are so caught up in the process that we forget how to have “fun”. We are caged in this world of expectations and constant “doing”. We think too much and feel too little. More than machinery, we need humanity; more than cleverness, we need kindness and gentleness. And all we want to do is to be free. But that doesn’t waiting for the quarter to end, or a holiday to arrive, it is here at this very moment. We must free ourselves from the mental shackles we put on ourselves. We need to see world with different eye, learn to do small things big and wonderful. We are diving deep into our subconsciousness. It’s about forgetting labels and just be alive. We let free thoughts flow, get out of the bubble/vacuum and observe those thoughts. We begin mindfulness by looking inwards, we close our eyes, we feel our bodies, our presence, and we awaken.

Design & Animation

Desmond Du

Rasita Kartarahardja

Music

“Pure Imagination” by Flannel Graph

Sound Design

Jovanvir Singh

Creative Treatment

Preliminary Concept - Manifesto of Creativity

The conception of Nirvana began with the theme “Manifesto”. Rasita and I decided to approach the prompt as a showcase of rocking our creative individuality and have FUN in the creative process. It would focus on the combination of dance (visual rhythm) and visual abstraction, portrayed by a broad range of visual styles. Below are the styleframes we created when we first began the project. However, we were not satisfied with our direction.

Rerouting to Nirvana — Manifesto of Mindfulness

We decided to kill our idea and restart from scratch. We looked at Buddhism, mandalas and geometry for our inspiration. At the same time, we were being introduced to Red Giant Plugins such Trapcode Particular, Form, Starglow and so on. Combined with Cinema 4D and After Effects, we did a bunch of exploration before we got to where we want.

Animation

Pattern Generation Exploration

Ring Tunnels

The first two scenes were actually derived from the same Cinema 4D loop animation. In the opening scene, we used the glow effect to get this carousel of colorful blown-out highlights. For the subsequent scene, Red Giant’s Starglow effects was used to achieve this geometric tunnel.