Gaja's world
“I consider the entire title sequence as a collage of influences. Similar to the main character of the film, Gaja, who’s 11 years old, I’ve also been under strong influence during the last 11 years. Or rather, my work has. I’ve been strongly influenced and inspired by studios and individuals who continue to make breathtaking projects. Thank you!”
"I’ve been strongly influenced and inspired by studios and individuals who continue to make breathtaking projects. Thank you!”
“As we’re all bombarded daily by different attempts to influence us, these titles try to reflect that. My approach in creating them was to go inside the mind of the film’s main character and make something that she herself would create, given such opportunity. Different people in Gaja’s life leave different impressions, and they needed to be visualized as such. So, basically each character got a different style in which they are presented. Sounds a lot for one person to handle and actually design and animate by himself, right? It really, really was.”
“Creating these titles, I had 9 characters to design, based on the actual actors and actresses from the film, and 8 different styles in which to design the characters in! Some characters needed to be created in all 8 styles! That's so many variations of characters in different styles, that my head still hurts, remembering the moment, when I first realized what I got myself into - especially, since it was my idea to do the style collage in the first place. I felt overwhelmed, but once I gathered my thoughts, went for a walk and after that, actually started doing the work, I started feeling in control again. Going for a walk, just to breathe and to gather your thoughts, does wonders!”
“The references for this project were beautiful spots and artwork that pilled up inside and managed to stuck with me during the last 11 years. So basically these main titles were my attempt to interpret and translate these references into a collage of influences.”
“For the characters, I made a custom rig (in 3d), with each limb actually being a seperate 2d polyline. Each limb / image plane was connected to the next node / body part at the joint, which was also a pivot. Everything was done by hand and animated almost frame by frame. So choosing Fusion for this kind of job was an unusual technique.”
“The whole main title sequence took about two months to create. I modelled and chiseled it into form by myself, but would love to have a small team to work with if there will ever be a next time for this type of project, which I’m really hoping there will be. The results would be even better. I could focus entirely on art directing & leading the team + more importantly, it’d be delivered so much faster.”
“It was a long and tough process to get through, but I sure was monumentally happy, when it was finally done and finished, plus I learned so much during the creation process. Can’t wait to apply some of the tricks I learned to new projects! The film itself has since then been released and is currently making it’s rounds on international film festivals.