Meliora – Brandon Charles

MELIORA

I've always been facinated by title sequences—True Detective, Game of Thrones, and Doom Patrol being some of my favorites. I came across a course taught by master styleframe artist Zaoeyo and decided to give it a whirl. I used Cinema 4D combined with Octane Render to create the styleframes and the final sequence. Below you'll find my styleframe exploration, along with the final video.

Styleframe exploration

In the course we're taught about the "Golden Frame". This is the frame that sets the tone for the whole piece and is normally the first frame that is created. The class instructor used a lot of classical sculptures in his examples, so I decided to keeping exploring that route. I was really drawn to two different angelic statues, so I ended up creating two different golden frames.

The first depicts a lone statue standing amongst the post-apocalyptic rubble of a city. Although the setting is bleak, I wanted to convey a feeling of hope.

Image straight from the renderer compared to color correction done in Photoshop.

My second concept is a lot darker than the first, both visually and thematically. I felt it had a more interesting story to tell, it also illiceted stronger feelings than the first—abliet, feelings of hopelessness, lonliness, and despair. You know, perfect for 2020!

Image straight from the renderer compared to color correction done in Photoshop.

Final styleframes

Title sequence

This final sequence took about 36 hours to render and was the first time I had attempted animation within Cinema 4D. I used simple camera animations like zooming and panning and also animated the lights from one spot to another to create a dramatic look.

I brought the animations into After Effects for some color correction, particle effects, and typography for the "credits".