Crossroads Exhibition
As part of our CEMEC we created the introduction film to the Crossroads exhibition (the video above is a promotional video for the exhibition). The film gives the visitor an overall view of the early Medieval period and debunks the ‘Dark Ages’ as a description of what was a culturally rich and fascinating period. The script weaves together several ideas from different periods, different regions, with seven travellers. It conveys a complex period of change over several hundred years and gives a flavour of the period from contemporary sources without dwelling on too much detail.
The film is entirely animated using maps, characters and objects. We created a map of Europe made up of lines that spread across territories and boundaries. We created it in such a way so that we could colour individual lines to denote a travel route or an area of influence. The exhibition designers Platvorm were using a single line as a visual device throughout the entire exhibition so this complemented the other visual material in the exhibition layout, but also worked as a great device for us to tie together objects, characters and our map.
We had access to great 3D scans that were part of the Cross Culture Timeline which we were able to render within our film, again using the lines to draw-on objects and connect these objects from different locations. The objects are beautiful and are used throughout to represent different ideas.
We also created depictions of travellers that are used throughout the exhibition and also in the main introduction film. Mel in Usfolk supplied us and Platfvorm with designs of these from outline descriptions by the CEMEC curatorial team. We then translated these sketches into 3D using the materials of the objects as inspiration for the materials and textures of the travellers.