Interim Camp


experimental short film


Poor visibility; weather again unsettled today. Surreal rocks and riven lowlands, valleys fog-shrouded. Frightening depths, and emptiness. Rarity of air is noticeable. What are you looking for in this hostile stretch?
 
A meditation about the pursuit of an idea; about obstacles, struggle and failure along the way.
 
Click though the slideshow to watch the video and read more about the process
The constant transformation of the landscape shapes and their surfaces is based on generated motion sequences of drifting and constantly transforming surface structures, which were created with a custom generative software tool.
Composer Arran Poole joined us in our conclave for 10 days and allowed for the soundtrack to evolve alongside the visual ideas.

About the Process

 
A fascination for the beauty of mountain views and glaciers was at the starting point of Interim Camp.
 
The dynamics that shape the earth´s surface until today are fascinating and frightening at the same time. Regarded in time lapse, mountains, valleys and plains are folded, sharpened and grinded like paper structures.
 
Respectively insignificant the human being appears in the dimensions of these forces. Tectonics and weather forces, time and chance create these inimitable irregular patterns that we recognise as nature.
 
 
background image: Perito Moreno glacier in Argentina, photo: Hildegard Bulitta
For our film, we wanted to gain control over these forces; create shapes and structures that are surreal and supernatural, yet so detailed that they might fool us for being real.
 
Also, diaries and travel reports of expeditions to the Himalaya or the Mount Everest inspired the narration of Interim Camp; for instance Geir Jenssen´s Field Recordings from Tibet: Cho Oyu and his related travel report.
 
 
background image: Kanchenjunga Mountain in the Indian Himalaya, photo: Aaron Ostrovsky
We made a series of sketches with hand modeled 3D terrains to get closer to the style and atmosphere we wanted to achieve.
 
See more of these on flickr.

Heightmaps as Terrain Representation

A common way in science and for computer games to represent terrain as a volumetric model are digital elevation maps, which are created from two images of a terrain from different angles (a stereo view), taken from an airplane or by a satellite.

A simplified way to store this incredibly comprehensive data are scalar heightmaps, where the contrast scale represents the elevation of a terrain: black areas represent lowest and white areas elevated terrain.

We thought the incredible irregular detail of natural structures can probably be best mimicked by a dynamic generative system, than made up from skratch and drawn by hand. Specialised terrain and heightmap generators like Terragen provide an interface to generate landscapes e.g. for computer games. But these tools aim to create static terrains as naturalistic as possible, whereas we wanted surrealistic and dynamic topographies: drifting glaciers, shifting plates and brittle rocks.

A scalar heightmap as used in science
 

Generative Landscapes

To be able to create these dynamic topographies, we developed a custom animation tool – an agent-based software simultion written in Scala and Processing, in which up to 5.000 ice floes dynamically drift along the scene.

With flocking, repel, attract and several other behaviours and global forces, we controlled the movement of the floes; accumulated them to mountains, ridges, and canyons, while the floes constantly got jammed and pushed by each other.

As a result, we rendered heightmap animations of evolving and morphing mountain landscapes from top view.

Screenshot from the software tool

Ice floes on a frozen lake
 

Translation from 2D to 3D

In 3D graphics applications, these heightmaps can be displaced into volumetric models of topographies. A dozen of black and white scenes featuring different landscapes, perspectives, and camera flights were then animated and rendered in Maya.

We synchronised the generated image sequences and the rendered camera views: every frame of the film corresponds with an image from the generative heightmap image sequences. The permanent drift of the ice floes was thereby turned into transposed rock and ice strata.

“Displacement” of a scalar heightmap into a 3D model
 

Narrative, Coloration, and Soundtrack

The scenes of Interim Camp were composed from the perspective of a wanderer, whose path becomes more challenging with every step, with every day he or she spends in this area. In fact, the physical and menthal strains affecting the body on a mountain hike can lead to vertigo, altitude sickness, displaced perception, and halluzinations.

Besides the increasing morphing of the landscape, the coloration of the film plays an important role in representing this physical and menthal condition of the invisible protagonist, in whose position we place the visitor. Scene by scene was colourised in post-production with the help of dynamically changing colour palettes.

Musician and composer Arran Poole worked on the soundrack in a parallel process. He layered noises, drones and rhythmical patterns to relate to the vastness and abstractness of the scenery. Weaved in field recordings of foot steps, beathing and unfamiliar sound events support the narrative of the film.


Interim Camp was supported by:
Hessisches Ministerium für Wissenschaft und Kunst




Go back to slide 2 to view the film again.