Claude Debussy's Life In Miniature

Here's a great animated project I worked on earlier in the year for classical music site Sinfini Music. Their mission is to 'cut through classical' by commissioning interesting online content including animations, of which this is part of the composer's Lives In Miniature series. The brief was to capture a flavour of the life of Claude Debussy, a composer I was only vaguely familiar with I'm sorry to say, in an animation under three minutes long. It was an education delving into his lovely music and dramatic history to write the script and develop a suitable visual style for the proposal.

Debussy's music was groundbreaking and radical for the time and his personal life proved equally unconventional so I focused on those aspects for the narrative. His was also the era of the Impressionists and, even though he disapproved of any association, I thought a modern and colourful painterly approach was appropriate mixed in with an inky brush pen style for the drawn portraits. The beautiful composition Claire de Lune was chosen for the piece and all was in place. It was put together in After Effects with a single unbroken 3D camera move and was a real joy to make, hope you enjoy.