To set the tone for the documentary, our designers created a mixture of high tech and sophisticated graphics. The 3D elements were meant to have a tangible feel to them, almost as if you could take them out of the screen and explore them yourself.
Quietly and seemingly out of sight, governments, private investors and mercenaries are seizing food and water resources at the expense of entire populations, and this film shines a light where no one wants you to see.
To set the tone for the documentary, our designers created a mixture of high tech and sophisticated graphics. The 3D elements were meant to have a tangible feel to them, almost as if you could take them out of the screen and explore them yourself.
The issues discussed in The Grab are grand and complex. It was our job to make those issues easier to understand and follow.
We created a hefty stack of render passes for this documentary to allow us more control during the compositing stage. In this particular shot, we added an additional custom AOV in our Redshift shader for a 24K population density animation. Since it was a separate element, we could easily make color adjustments that only affected the population density. Or, we could turn it off entirely.
From the main title to the treatment of documents, we wanted a consistent feel to the visuals throughout the film. The reporters and filmmakers were in very real danger, and we wanted to design a package that felt as serious as the topic truly was.
Our use of grids was inspired by early 2000s satellite spy imagery, and being such a prominent feature in our graphics, we set aside some time to build a variety of "grid rigs" that could be customized and animated with a few simple controls. Here's a little breakdown of how they work.