Starcadian Midnight Signals II

​

The DAVE School curriculum ends in a ten-week production period in which the graduating class works with an actual client on a project. We were approached by music artist Starcadian to do a teaser trailer for his upcoming album "Midnight Signals II." The proposal specified a rundown video store from the 80's. 

Division of assets took place, and we were responsible for our own pieces that would combine for the final product. I was assigned a VHS box, rewinder, boxed candy, and a bathroom door. These items were mostly commonplace, with the exception of the VHS Rewinder. After various days of online research, I decided it was not enough to look at a picture in order to get the essence of the item, so a hunt took place through a few specialty store until one was found. The end result was heightened by the tactile and in-person view appreciation of the asset. 

​

For the boxed candy and VHS cover, we were told we had freedom of choice to use our Graphic Design and photo editing experience to create distinctive and unique items. The candy was a regular movie-theatre type box with a spin on a preexisting brand "Sugar Babies" slightly altered to play on one of Starcadian's best performing songs" Satur-Daze." As for the VHS cover, I opted to use a visibly weathered box and took inspiration from an old horror camp classic "Killer Klowns From Outer Space" while injecting my personal humor and combining it with an equally campy image of drag queen Tammie Brown, effectively making "Killer Kweens from Outer Space." For the logo I used PhotoShop to alter the letterings, while also studying the font to make it as undetectable as possible to distinguish any changes made to the cover.

​

One of the remaining assets that were left unclaimed was one calling for a FX smoke effect. We had not been taught FX simulations like those in school, so I took it as a challenge. This was an exciting hurdle that I took head on. I spent hours researching how to achieve a photorealistic effect. I influenced Maya to work in ways that I had never thought of could work in a program that, as far as I knew at that moment, had only been used to provide rigid objects and not for abstract assets. Due to the deadline of the project fast approaching, I managed to create a piece that was very well received in less than 24 hours. I then helped a fellow classmate to adjust his fire effects to match with the new smoke created, effectively being named the Lead of FX for the production.