Mote Marine Laboratory
Challenge
To bring an immersive experience for the Aquarium visitors. With an animation that will be shown through a porthole inside an elevator giving the illusion that the passengers are underwater during their ride on the elevator.
Working on this piece for Mote Marine Laboratory, I will be collaborating with fellow motion designer Ryan Sene.
Ryan and I will be working with Samantha Bledstein, the head of the design team at Mote Marine Sarasota FL. It was an amazing experience for us to work with the client and get feedback from her to see how we are doing when producing our design and animation for the elevator.
Mote Marine is an independent, nonprofit, marine research organization based on City Island in Sarasota, Florida They are scientists, explorers, and stewards of the ocean. Focused on research and education, we work to create a better environment for ourselves and our children.
Research
To begin this piece we first had to figure out what type of experience we wanted to create. So we went out to Mote Marine to do research and really feel the atmosphere that their design team has already made.
We walked around and took lots of photos and talked to many of the staff and volunteers, getting a lot of great information and design inspiration Ryan and I got together a list of different animals that we thought would be fun to explore.
The Octopuses really got my attention and the Otters really inspired Ryan. Now we can begin designing and conceptualizing.
Pitch
We created different style frames and porthole designs for both animals and we both worked on the concept of the animation together for the directions. Overall we just wanted something eye catching and a fun visual.
Otters At Play
This experience is to show otters in their natural habitat. Take this elevator ride to enjoy these beautiful creatures in an accurate interpretation illustrated style.
A mockup in an elevator for Otters At Play
Camouflage
This experience here is to show off the common octopus. A cephalopod this animal can camouflage with its surroundings.
Have fun spotting the octopus and take in their beauty.
A mockup in an elevator for Camouflage
Development
Moving forward Camouflage was chosen. With feedback I refined the design and made an update to have an overall a painterly look.
First Pass
I went back into the design in illustrator and the first thing I did was spend the time to create the main octopus and the environment. This was such a tedious and long process but I knew I had to get this done early in order for us to progress on track.
I then sent all the files to Ryan so he could put everything in after effects and rig the Octopus for us to animate as well as put the environment pieces I made into the scene.
We decided early on that we would split the piece up into segments and that way we can split up the workload to be fair and we would be each other’s, art directors.
Ryan was amazing and rigged the octopus up the night I sent him the artwork
First Pass in the Porthole
Creating the look in illustrator simply by layering lots of different shades of browns and reds
We both went into after effects and began placing the scene
First Pass expanded from the Porthole
Second Pass
With the new lighting in it was starting to come together and our file was slowing way down
Here I am creating the lighting in After Effects as Ryan is animating the Octopus in our main file
Second Pass in the Porthole
Ryan and I made it a goal to email Samantha and get her feedback to make sure what we are doing is working. With notes from her and our Creative Director Ed Cheetham we began improving the piece.
Having a meeting with Samantha was great because it was just so gratifying to see her pleased with what we made and it inspired us to push further with this.
To add to it I created a new school of fish that can bring in some scale and just create more life within the ocean we have. A fun touch that we enjoyed was adding in more octopuses and testing each other to try and point out where they are sitting. It was fun to hide one from each other because it made us feel like the person visiting mote marine who would look at our animation.
I had a fun time creating a school of fish using some expression coding
Second Pass expanded from the Porthole
Final Pass
Final Video full frame going up
Final Video full frame going down
Final Video Porthole going up.
Final Video Porthole going down
Final Video in Elevator going up.
Final Video Elevator going down.
Big Thanks to my partner Ryan Sene. The link to his website and breakdown of the piece is below. Go check it out to support him as well and see another side of the progress.
https://www.thedivergentart.com/casestudies/motemarine-tcx2p-z8hfj-4cyrd-p3npr
Another thank you to Samantha Bledstein, go check out Mote Marine and their amazing facility.