Summary

A young boy decides to follow in his grandfather's footsteps, embarking on a journey to find his place in the world.

"Here Be Giants was guided by an intersection of my interests in the mythic qualities of landscape, personal documentary and temporal scale. As we age our perspective on the world invariably changes. Things that were said to us as children take on new meaning, and we gain an appreciation for the accomplishments and sacrifices of those that came before us. The influence of my parents and grandparents and their desire to pass along their knowledge helped me to shape the characters in this story." - Thomas Heban

Project Description

Technical considerations for Here Be Giants included designing ways to depict various scales of time. The final design decisions draw from landscape timelapse photography as well as live action cinematography combined with my own artistic interpretations. The visual imagery used to convey the passage of time was created in Autodesk Maya using paint effects, texture deformers, properties of the physical sun & sky and fluid containers.Both performance capture and keyframe animation were used, the latter was often randomized to provide visual cues to temporal scale. Particular attention was paid to lensing, speed of camera movement and editorial pacing to convey scale and to provide the visual language for the animation. These visual considerations were paired with sound effects and music to help convey the idea of temporal liquidity. Structurally the narrative echoes the temporal visual themes following a nonlinear path.Narration is provided by MFA actor Sifiso Mazibuko, who brings the character of Dayu to life, imbuing him with a grace and power that lends him gravitas. The narration and imagery is bolstered by powerful music from Composer Larry Group.

Completed in 2015.