During the early summer period I had the privilege of being asked to create a trailer to promote the paperback release of Giles Kristian's Sunday Times Bestseller 'Lancelot'. This is a post to share my creative process alongside the completed trailer
I had already read the book before being asked to work on the project, so had a number of my own thoughts, ideas and pictures in my mind. The brief was also a fairly open one. Giles had found a video of a Hawk, hovering in place, which he supplied as a starting point; the relevance of which can be found in the book itself, which I wouldn't want to spoil!
Taking this image of the Hawk as a starting point, I began to conceptualise a composition that could adequately denote the brand identity already established within the fantastic cover art by STEPHEN MULCAHEY , whilst also signify the thematic and stylistic drivers of the fantastic narrative at the heart of Gile's novel.
Chiefly, my aim was to portray both the magic and the realism of Giles' prose via a granularity of texture, hue and form. I chose to use an analogous colour palette of ambers, browns and blacks that could complement the pack shot of the book, whilst also evoke natural and organic tonality. I also elected to hand-paint the textures of clouds within Adobe Photoshop, before adding a CinemaScope 3D camera move within Adobe After Effects, alongside some accentuated lighting, focus and animation effects.
Hand Painted LUMA mask for clouds
Composite of Painted Clouds that was then combined with the Hand-Painted LUMA mask
Working alongside the ever talented PHILIP STEVENS, the final edit and grade was then completed inside DaVinci Resolve, with the timing of the edit based somewhat on the fantastic score created - to complement the book - by composer WILL MUSSER
Static Frame taken from the completed composition in Adobe After Effects
If you would like to see the final trailer then please feel free to watch the video below. I hope you find it useful. It was a great project to work on.
