Mr. Nobody is futurist science fiction drama that is set in a future where human beings are immortal. The story follows last mortal human being, Nemo, trying to recount his life. He remembers multiple past lives, however, and throughout the movie the psychiatrist who accompanies him is trying to figure out what was Nemo's actual past. It is an existentialist themed movie, very color oriented and stylized, and also very clean cut.

I wanted to embody all of these principles in my After Effects teaser trailer for the movie. Because the movie is set in the distant future, I decided that I wanted to stick to something very vector looking and clean cut, but I didn't want to lose the color that I heavily associate with the movie. Nemo's past starts in the late 50's/60's and continues on with three different women, and the main colors used are warm reds and yellows. This is why I chose the circles to be these shades. As well, because of the mysterious mood of the movie, I chose a harmony from a song a friend of mine recorded to play over the short animation. It is very folky, and almost mystical in a religious way. I tried to make the camera within the animation move to the rhythm of the song to make it integrated more and have the viewers eyes and ears follow the movements.

The reason I chose using blossoming circles was because when I think of a circle I imagine a continuum. Circles are never-ending and never-beginning all in once. They symbolize the essence of Mr. Nobody perfectly. Nemo doesn't know who he is, where he came from, how his life began and where it went. He is lost in his bast and the rest of the world will lose theirs as well as their lives are lived for eternity. The circle of life is not completed on either side in the movie, and by creating so many I wanted to symbolize this.

I did this by creating two circles and offsetting them in time and made them both scale up from zero to one hundred percent over time as well. I also eased in the key frames using the curves to make the transition more gradual and fluid. I then precomposed the two circles and began to layer them over top of each other, always offsetting them in the time line so that they would start at different times. I then created another precomposition and kept doing this until I was happy with the variety that I had achieved.

I added the text at the end so that the viewer would understand what movie the teaser was made for, and I applied a few effects to, again, symblize themes within the movie. I applied an effect that played with the characters of the word 'Mr Nobody' and went through a series of different letters before it stopped on the final word. I also made the word desintegrate at the end by using another text effect.

The variety of characters was meant to represent Nemo's different lives and pasts, and him not knowing who he is. The desintegration of the word was also meant to symbolize the unknown, as well as Nemo being a mortal who will have to face death and dissapear into nothingness. I also faded the main light that followed the title sequence at the end of the clip and blurred out the background to make it seem like the scene was being extinguished instead of everything fading to black. I wanted the viewer to still be able to see the outline of things after the animation was over.

I had a lot of fun learning how to use After Effects and using basic effects to create a much larger 3D project. I learned how to animate shapes with different speeds, how to apply different effects, work in 3D space with lights and cameras, how to precompose, and link layers together. I am very pleased with the final product and think that I conveyed the message I was trying to get across very well.

The circle of life may be a phrase used a lot, but it provided me with some very valid inspiration.