Great American Tales

Show Open

THE NEED

Create a painterly style show opener for the outdoor channel

Hothaus Creative approached me to help them create a show opener for a new show on the Outdoor Channel called Great American Tales. The aim of the initial concept was to connect the beautiful scenic landscapes to the stories that have been passed down from generation to generation.

Original animatic provided by the client to help visualize the concept.

THE PROCESS

Creating Style Frames

The client wanted the final video to have a stylized, painterly look and feel. We had talked through various options from utilizing stock footage, to photogrammetry, to full 3D. At the end of the day I decided to go with CG in order to give ourselves the flexibility to create seamless transitions between scenes.

INITIAL look development

In order to create the final look, I needed to create a filter that would mimic a painterly effect. In order to do this, I stacked a number of effects in After Effects. Once the client and I decided on something we liked, I was able to move into Cinema 4D and start modeling and shaping the 3D scenes.

Stock imagery with watermark used for the rough style development

Style Frames

After we settled on a general look for the painterly style, I moved into Cinema 4D where I created the scenes and applied the previously decided filter. The initial round of style frames was cast in a mid day light, but as we continued through the process, we decided that showing the various scenes at different times of day would be more dynamic for the scene progression.