3D artist and motion Designer Nicola Destefanis in London: “I always suffered from insomnia. But my condition got quite bad during the lockdown. So instead of staring at the ceiling, I decided to invest the extra free time describing the twists and loops of my mind trying to fall asleep.

“I decided to use design and animation as complementary elements to instill an evanescent but also heavy emotion. It was essential to not only create beautiful animations but also to be able to describe my feelings and translate that quiet agitation into visuals.

“I used RedShift for Cinema 4D as the render engine. The refracting glass may represent inconsistency but I also needed more concrete and solid elements to give a sense of heaviness.

“Fast Bokeh pro has been an essential tool for this project as it gave me the freedom to add camera lens depth of field in compositing, which is a great technical advantage. Not just because it is able to create beautiful images, but because DOF has been a focal element from the creative and narrative point of view.

“I spent a long time playing with particles, simulations, all sorts of different effectors, and after a while, I nailed down a 30-second edit that I shared with the guys at Amplitudo.

“While they were working on the audio I was still refining the lighting, rendering, and compositing. We exchanged work in progress for a while and that has been essential to fine-tuning both the visuals and audio, to one other.”
 

Director/animator: Nicola Destefanis
Sound Design: Amplitudo

Toolkit: Cinema4D, Redshift, X-Particles, Fast Bokeh Pro