Process
Building the Nightwater titles
Notes from eight weeks on the opening titles of a festival about light, from the first board to the last render.
Nightwater is a festival of light art, which makes it a hard client for a title sequence. The audience spends three days looking at real light. They notice fake light at once.
One rule: no light we cannot explain
Every streak in the titles comes from a light in the scene. If something glows, there is a lamp. If a trail appears, something moved past a lamp. It made the first week slow. It made every change after that fast, because the light did the right thing on its own.
Color first, then motion
Before any animation, I made a color script: one swatch for each beat of the music. The film runs cold to warm and ends on paper white. Once the festival approved the strip, the edit almost cut itself.
We asked for something people would stay in their seats for.
Hanne Ruusk, artistic director, Nightwater Festival
The full case study, with the boards and the color script, is on the project page.