Smell-O-Vision? Making Fully Printed Animations For "Rite Of Way"
My attempt to embody a fragrance through motion.
Rite Of Way, a contemporary fragrance brand, recently approached me about creating a few fully printed vertical videos for their first scent “Outer Realm.” More specifically, they wanted the textural feeling of my (very) short film “Shepherd.”
I jumped at the chance to bring my printed experiments to a client project. Watch the first two videos below:
The Videos
Lightning Strike
Phantom
If you’re curious about the process, continue reading! If not, thank you for watching.
Process
Pre-Production
This project had a fast timeline, which was daunting when dealing with the temperamental nature of the printing and scanning process. However, the client had a very clear vision for these videos. Most of the line-based icons you see came from the Rite Of Way brand guidelines!
So after receiving the initial scripts, I jumped into some quick and dirty storyboards.
Making the storyboards this way made the overall sequence easier to edit and this process allowed me to see the full arc of the video very quickly.
For the first project milestone, I chose to combine the storyboards and design phases into one deliverable. I printed and scanned all of the backgrounds right away so that there would be no surprises around texture later on.
I built the deck in google slides, allowing the client to comment. This ensured I had all the feedback in one place and I was able to use the deck as my shot breakdown. For a fast timeline like this, keeping everything in the same place was invaluable.
Animation
I animated the full video without the printed texture first, collecting all motion feedback possible before printing. I animated everything at 8 frames per second, which made the printing logic easy: one second per page.
Once animation was approved, I delved into the printing side of things.
I exported a image sequence from After Effects and then made contact sheets for each second of the video in photoshop.
As you can see, the color changes dramatically during printing. But, because I had already pitched the printed design frames, I had an approved color approach and an existing process for color correction.
My blue ink ended up running out halfway through printing the second video, which makes complete sense because…that’s the main color I was using. After scrambling to get ink that’s compatible with my 10+ year old laser printer, I continued printing.
I scanned the pages using the document feeder, which started to create a black line down the right side of my pages. This prompted a deep dive into epson printer cleaning. After cleaning the document feeder and scanning bed thoroughly, I was able to finish the second video without the unexpected printer lines.
I’m very happy with how these turned out. I’m even more proud of how quickly these came together. I was able to deliver the proposed finals FIVE DAYS EARLY, which allowed us the tighten up the text and sound.
Concluding Thoughts
After using my printer for animation experiments this past year, I’ve created a process that is fun, sometimes fast, and creatively stimulating. Personal projects can be an avenue for experimentation, but also a way to attract the professional work that you want. Experimenting like this can be worth the time investment, not just from a career standpoint, but it’s good for your brain. Or at least for mine.
Your Obligatory Cat Photo
Súper cool! What was the timeline for the project if you don’t mind me asking? I know sometimes working on an exciting project can mean sacrificing budget or putting in more hours than planned which might lead to burnout.
These are other-worldly.