red flames of desire
as I hold my lover close. . .
the sky has caught fire
-Andrea Dietrich
Andrea is an american poet and author who specialises in traditional poetry and also writes haiku's - a form of Japanese poetry that consists seventeen syllables in the sentence formation of 5-7-5.
This short video reverberates with the idea of magic realism, which is a genre of art that is set in a predominantly realistic world with scenarios and situations that reveal fantasy or magic elements. While including a variety of different concepts, magical realism combines magical elements into realistic fiction. This particular haiku resonated with the idea of a passionate and fierce romance that prevails within my conscience, due to its relevance I felt obligated to create a visual experience that brought out my interpretation of these three lines.
It was a challenge to create this piece of moving image, nothing in this composition is hand drawn. I only used parts of images from old botanical and scientific drawings and combined them to form this complex environment that inculcates a sense of depth in the eyes of the viewer.
Here is the initial concept storyboard I had drawn out to express my interpretation:
I used over a hundred and fifty to two hundred botanical and scientific drawings to lay down the composition I had imagined in Photoshop on separate layers based on depth. Then I exported those layers into AfterEffects and added subtle effects to blend the entire space together. I also used slight animation in the foreground to incorporate a sense of liveliness in the forest and added some fog and mist among the trees all the way to the horizon. I eventually brought the layers together to bind them in an environment that depicted exactly what I had in mind. The botanical drawings I used were extracted from old ChildCraft books and biology texts I had lying around. Here are some examples of the kind of images I used:
This is the breakdown of my process in Photoshop:
''The composition depicts lovers, in ever changing complimentary forms floating towards the horizon only to burn out in a flare of passion and intensity. The two figures do not seem to differentiate based on gender or species, implying a deeper sense of the word 'love' while they leave their world behind and proceed to immortalize themselves.''
