“The Three Graces” by Berner

  • ©Andreas Berner


Conference:


Title:


    The Three Graces

Length:


    2:45

Director(s):



Description:


    In my thesis project, “The Three Graces,” I tried to bring each of the graces to life, from their individual creation as one of the elements (fire, water, wind) to their final destination as a “reunited” statue, forming the symbolic embrace of unity. Once again, they are frozen in time.

    The three graces of Greek mythology represent the quintessence of art and dance for me, and artists throughout history have been inspired by them. The beauty of the human form and the body in motion are expressed best through the art of dance. I am inspired by the gracefulness of the three graces and the ancient metaphors of liberality and unity they stand for.

    The original dance sequence was conceptualized and choreographed with Ayo Janeen Jackson, currently a dancer at the Bill T. Jones Dance Company. She was the representative dancer for all three graces and performed the dance movements in a motion capture session with Acclaim. The animation was further fine tuned with key frame techniques, and the final rendering of the characters was achieved through expressive particle systems in Maya.

    The work is homage to and reminiscent of the early works of the “Fantasia” artists and German expressionistic animators like Oskar Fischinger.

    This project was achieved within the three months of my final semester at NYU’s Center for Advanced Digital Application in Spring 2003.

    Tools used include: Motion Capture, 3D modeling and particle systems inMaya, 2Dcompositing in AfterEffects, Combustion, and Final Cut Pro.


Additional Contributors:


    In my thesis project, “The Three Graces,” I tried to bring each of the graces to life, from their individual creation as one of the elements (fire, water, wind) to their final destination as a “reunited” statue, forming the symbolic embrace of unity. Once again, they are frozen in time.

    The three graces of Greek mythology represent the quintessence of art and dance for me, and artists throughout history have been inspired by them. The beauty of the human form and the body in motion are expressed best through the art of dance. I am inspired by the gracefulness of the three graces and the ancient metaphors of liberality and unity they stand for.

    The original dance sequence was conceptualized and choreographed with Ayo Janeen Jackson, currently a dancer at the Bill T. Jones Dance Company. She was the representative dancer for all three graces and performed the dance movements in a motion capture session with Acclaim. The animation was further fine tuned with key frame techniques, and the final rendering of the characters was achieved through expressive particle systems in Maya.

    The work is homage to and reminiscent of the early works of the “Fantasia” artists and German expressionistic animators like Oskar Fischinger.

    This project was achieved within the three months of my final semester at NYU’s Center for Advanced Digital Application in Spring 2003.

    Tools used include: Motion Capture, 3D modeling and particle systems inMaya, 2Dcompositing in AfterEffects, Combustion, and Final Cut Pro.

Animation / Video Overview:


Type: