Pause
Director: Anna Yang Role: Technical Director, Motion Designer Tools: After Effects, Cinema 4D
Pause is a short film directed and designed by Anna Yang about searching for a way to stop time, drawn from her feelings about growing up and how fast life moves. As Technical Director and Animator, I took on the film’s most complex shots, combining 2D and 3D techniques in Cinema 4D and After Effects to match Anna’s soft, painterly look.
I was eager to grow when I was little. Everything felt slow, even time. But as I grew older, time didn’t walk, it ran. Everything felt so fast and there is always the moment which I just want to pause everything. The grown up world is so different than what I expected, yet I tried to search for a way, struggled and perplexed. The answer is neither. What if the thing I need is not a pause, never a pause…then what is it?
Animation
Invisible Glass Cube
I built the cube in After Effects’ 3D space from four solid layers with a Stroke effect, animating each stroke so the cube emerges from the shadows.
A spotlight targeting the hero sphere lights only the edges it passes, and volumetric light from vertically stretched Fractal Noise adds depth. The sphere always faces camera to hold its 3D form, and Curves, Deep Glow and Noise finish the look.
Wave & Smoke Explosion
To create this explosion transformation shot, I used Cinema 4D for the 3D animation, which was then stylized in After Effects. It has two parts: radial smoke trails and a wave explosion.
The radial smoke trails were created using a Loft with two circle splines that were distorted with the Displacer deformer and a large-scale noise shader. Radial and Cylinder Fields were then applied to vary the waviness. The smoke trails were revealed by animating the Y-position from beneath the floor plane and rotating at high speed to simulate the smoky movement.
The wave explosion was primarily achieved using a Tube with a Taper in the Y-axis and an extremely high Strength value. A Bulge effect was used to stylize the shape of the explosion.
Stylization
One of the defining features of this film is its soft gradient aesthetics, which were achieved through Anna’s direction. To create this look, we adopted a workflow that involved rendering out flat colors from C4D and then using a combination of post-processing techniques in After Effects.
To achieve the desired aesthetic, we applied a mixture of Radial Fast Blur, Fast Box Blur, Deep Glow, and Noise to the rendered colors. This allowed us to add depth, dimensionality, and texture to the visuals. The breakdown above shows how the look comes together.
Candle
To create the flying papers that form the candle, I used a plane and Spline Wrap. One unique aspect of this animation was that instead of generating a gradient in a material, Anna painted the texture to be used for the planes. This approach was taken to ensure that the visuals did not appear too computer-generated, which added to the overall authenticity and organic feel of the scene.
Anna’s hand-drawn motion sketch made this shot smooth to animate. It showed her intent clearly, with no guesswork, and it’s a practice I’d recommend to any designer handing off to animators.
Credits
Direction
Design & Animation
Post & Sound