The Gates Foundation and their global partners had been working very hard coordinating remotely during the pandemic. To recognize and appreciate the amazing work that the employees have achieved, the Gates Foundation and Dave Shanae reached out to me to shoot a live in-studio in 2021. The in-studio was featured on their internal call reaching 3,000+ employees and partners around the globe.
GATES FOUNDATION
DAVE SHANAE LIVE
CLIENTS
- Gates Foundation (Brand)
- Dave Shanae (Artist)
CHANNELS
- Digital event
ROLES
- Creative Director
- Editor & VFX
- Audio Engineer & Post Audio
- Producer
TEAM
- Dave Shanae – Artist, Lead Vocals
- Jay Purcell – Drums
- Jessie Quigley – Guitar/Bass
- Kenny Carpenter – Creative Director/VFX/Sound
ANIMATION PROCESS
Dave Shanae approached me with a project and provided a general idea of how he wanted the in-studio shoot to look. He expressed his desire to feature the band and incorporate flowers into the visuals. Prior to the call, I was heavily researching projector animation for visual backgrounds and thought this was a perfect fit to implement this idea.
I pitched the concept of having a rotating flower projected behind the band, creating an immersive “head in the clouds” like environment inspired by his recent single at the time, “Heavenly”. This idea aimed to enhance the visual experience and create a captivating atmosphere for the audience (without breaking the budget).
After his green light, I began developing initial concepts in Blender and crafting renders that showcased the proposed idea and the chosen color scheme. I tested multiple renders, exploring day and sunset cycles, changing the hue of the flower petals, and overall hues. These renders helped us visualize the potential outcome and provided a foundation before I moved onto animation in the pre-production process.
After selecting the blue and orange hue flower, I began developing early renders and animations to simulate a day cycle and cloud movement. Due to the scope of the budget, and limitations of hardware, I quickly realized that creating longer loops and higher volumetric fidelity made render times exponentially longer. I focused on a shorter loop cycle and lowered some of the fidelity of the volumetric clouds to finish the render before our shoot.
