lee!

pale blue dot

2D Animation & Design – Lee Beauchamp
Music – ‘Agape’ by Nicholas Britell
Speech (condensed) -Carl Sagan
Voice over -Kolten Webber
After Effects, Illustrator

the brief

With an emphasis on typography, utilize Carl Sagan’s speech of the “Pale Blue Dot” to create a less than 60s long animation, invoking a sense of wonder and awe.

concept

The real question was how to play around with typography without it being a word slog fest. Sagan’s speech had to be trimmed down to only a minute, so it was vital that the most essential parts and essence of the piece remained in the final version.

I wanted to make sure these two complexities came across:

  • the spirit of being in self-aware of how small we are in relation to everything in the universe
  • committing that self-realization to a sense of camaraderie with one another

As the speech is edited, I employed the help of a friend (shoutout Kolten Webber) for the voiceover. This would help focus the viewer on few words shown on screen for emphasis, while still getting the overall speech and message across.

development

As typography was the main focus, going for simplicity with a flat 2D design could further emphasize the words and meaning. The styleframes heavily rely on abstraction to not divert attention away, but still alludes to the overall theme of humanity and space with simple shapes.

Courtesy of NASA
VO: ‘on a mote of dust, suspended in a sunbeam.’

This style frame in particular is a reference to the original Voyager 1’s Pale Blue Dot Image in 1990. For those unfamiliar with the picture, the voiceover includes the line describing it.

I delve more into detail of the style frame process here.

thanks for watching 🙂