Documentary
Nat Geo Final
National Geographic’s documentary Mega Force presented an interesting challenge. We had to tell the story of work culture in ancient India and how essential day to day skills were passed on from generation to generation. After considering many options, it was decided that since we are showcasing skills of an era gone by, we should employ the tools from the same day and age. Ink, weathered paper and hand drawn illustrations. The idea was to shoot and composite the ink flow in such a way to make it seems like the ink is drawing the illustrations by itself and telling
the story of Ancient India.
Tech: All illustrations featured in the film are hand drawn layer by layer. A variety of paper and ink combinations were tried during pre‐production to get the right mix and ink flow was shot at 120 fps to capture the gradient and gradual spread. The illustrations and ink were then compositedin After Effects using layer masks, and alpha matte’s to make it seem like the ink is spreading to form the image on paper. The project took 6 weeks from start to finish.
