London studio Optical Arts and director Fabrice Le Nezet continue their in-house visual experiments with Babel, a short film “blurring the lines between history, illustration, typography, print, animation, architecture, and design.”

Fabrice Le Nezet “Originally inspired by Italian artist Antonio Basoli’s letter B print, the Tower of Babel fascinated us and we decided to depict the story behind it as the letter B installment of our ongoing alphabet series while also celebrating the work of Basoli and his Alfabeto Pittorico.
 

“Inspired by Basoli’s print, we used a grainy print-like texture and monochromatic shading in the sky to create darkness and drama within the unfolding events.”

 
“The challenges included telling the full story in two minutes as well as showing all the details and richness of the tale. To overcome these challenges we used time warping and time-lapse to show years of action in just minutes of film.

“By keeping the same POV we can see all the people and details involved in the tale all at once, with time to track to different moments within the scene as well as see the overall progress of the tower being built.

“Inspired by Basoli’s print, we used a grainy print-like texture and monochromatic shading in the sky to create darkness and drama within the unfolding events. Over composited 100 layers were combined to convey the richness of the story and magnitude of the event.”
 
 

 
Production: Optical Arts
Director: Fabrice Le Nezet
Creative Director: Optical Arts
Concept: Dan Tobin Smith
Producer: Hannah May
3D Artist: Nicolas Damour, Flora Macleod, Izaak Pardey

Sound Design: String and Tins