Adding Depth to a Video about Flat Art
This spring I had the pleasure of joining the Hillmann & Carr team as we produced two pieces of media for the Library of Congress's special exhibition, Drawing Justice: The Art of Courtroom Illustration.
The first was to create an interactive kiosk to allow visitors to explore some of the courtroom drawings which were not on display. I will deal with that in a separate blog post.
The main event was a short video introducing the exhibition to visitors. Why did courtroom illustration develop as its own unique art form? What were some of the challenges for the artists? What were some of their most exciting memories?
For us, the challenge was to take existing footage — both archival footage of news shows that used courtroom illustrations as well as interview footage with the artists — and make them visually exciting.
My goal in working with these original sources was to lift both of these footage sources and create a sense of depth.
With the interview footage, I decided to cut out the interview subject from their background (keying was not an option, as the grey background did not contrast highly enough with the subject). In place of the background, I created a three-dimensional set in After Effects with strongly vertical slices from the artist's work — a look which would be echoed in the interactive I also designed.
I also wanted to give the archival television footage a sense of time and place. I decided to create a "set" for the footage — a living room with a vintage TV set, and move a camera toward the virtual TV set while the footage played. The effect was dramatic:
In addition to these two depth effects, I also produced all the "lower thirds" (the ID's), the title sequence, and other motion graphics moves throughout the show. Take a look at an excerpt here: