THE PALE BLUE DOT
(link to project at the very end)
INTRODUCTION:
I have always been fascinated with space and how infinite it is. It truly puts thing into perspective regarding our place in the universe and I feel it is the perfect way to battle an existential crisis because it is both humbling and terrifying at the same time. Our minds tend to visualise space as this thing that is “above” us but really, it surrounds us and it’s scary. We could be utterly alone in the universe, we’ll never know, but what we know for sure is that we are not alone on earth. There are 7.4 billion of us and we all share the same situation, that we exist on a tiny piece of rock floating alone in space. Our position and loneliness should help put things into perspective where we reconsider what really matters in this universe.
A person who sums this up brilliantly is Carl Sagan, an American astrophysicist, in his book “The Pale Blue Dot”. He opens the book with a brilliant chapter that encompasses one of his most popular passages in his career. In that passage, he reflects on an image taken by the Voyager I, a space ship sent out into space on a never ending journey of discovery, of the Earth all the way from Saturn in which the Earth is nothing but a “Pale Blue Dot”. He ponders on it and discusses in well chosen words the ways in which we, as humans, need to reflect on our place in the universe and how that in the grand scheme of things we need to be there for each other as we are nothing but a pale blue dot and that that should put things into perspective.
PROJECT AIM:
My idea is to create a short motion graphics animation accompanied with the words of Carl Sagan from “The Pale Blue Dot”. The words will be a voice over narrated by Carl Sagan himself as it will be taken from the book’s official audiobook. Through this short, I hope to be able to send a message across that though we may be terribly tiny and everything we do is almost insignificant in comparison to this vast, vast universe because it’s too busy to even notice us .... it’s actually okay.
ILLUSTRATIONS AND PROCESS:
Regarding the visuals and animation style, I’ve opted to work with motion graphics animation rather than traditional as I’m able to have more control in terms of the movement of the visuals to become more swift and smooth. I’d also like to keep it relatively abstract and I feel that motion graphics animation based on digital illustrations would be a better way to apply that. Therefore the softwares I’m using to work with are: Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator and finally for the animation Adobe After Effects.
To start working on the storyboard, I listened to the text and began to mentally visualise the sentences. I started to note which sentences could form one single visual together and which sentences need separate and individual visuals. In a way, I began to divide the text into sentences and write down how their duration so that when I started creating the visuals, I would keep in mind the time so that nothing lasts too long or too little and nothing becomes too static or too hyper.
I started out by taking a notebook and writing the text in the way I’ve divided it. I would then write down its timestamp in the audio and the duration of it next to it and then I would begin to doodle possible visuals. I consider this to be hardest, longest and most frustrating stage in the entire project’s process. The mind-block was crippling and the lack of progress due to it was even more discouraging and it cost me a huge amount of valuable time (it could’ve been dealt with in better ways if I hadn’t succumbed to the mind- block and its subsequent anxiety).
screenshots from the project.
