I stumbled upon what would become a mashup pairing of Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Elvis last night when I was watching the first scene in Encounters. Set in the desert, we are introduced to U.S. government research and military figures and a French researcher. They are struck dumbfounded when they arrive on the scene. There are multiple fighter planes appearing quite out of place as they had all been reported as missing in 1945. They note that the planes look brand new, but the pilots are nowhere to be seen. After the camera pan reveals the last few planes, one marked “33,” we cut to an old man repeatedly muttering “¡El sol salió anoche y me cantó!” The American translator deciphers his echoed exclamation as: “He says the sun came out last night. He says it sang to him.” This translation inspired me to post these two graphics together as they represent the encounter and also the aforementioned singer. I imagine if Elvis was revealed at the end of Encounters when the ship opened up revealing all of the travelers he’d certainly be taking care of business. Can I get a “Thank ya. Thank ya very much?”
I originally designed these Encounters and Elvis graphics last year via a combo of a few quick sketches, Illustrator, Cinema4D, After Effects, and Red Giant Holomatrix & Universe. Yesterday I spent some time adding additional distortion details in Affinity Photo. The more I transition away from Photoshop the more inspired I feel as I am discovering new tools in Affinity Photo each day by just experimenting and playing around. It’s rather invigorating to say the least. I feel like a kid again back in art school.
The silvery magenta color palettes were inspired by asking myself what would be the opposite design and color theory of the movie poster for Close Encounters of the Third Kind depicted as a dark highway at night leading into the unknown. The white lines leading the eye to the vanishing point and then up to the base of Devil’s Tower was quite effective. This film cemented this location near Sundance in northeastern Wyoming within the jurisdiction of Crook County as a hot tourist destination icon.
Both works began by cleaning up the concepts in Illustrator for the vector linework. Then I imported them into Cinema4D and built up the environments around the titling. I planned on adding most of the fine detailing in comp rather than in 3D. I kept my scene in black and white while focusing on modeling and lighting. Once I arrived at an overall tonal rendering for each I rendered out EXRs which I then dropped into After Effects where I pushed the exposures, added the Holomatrix and Universe distortions among other chromatic details.
Laughlin : What the hell is happening here?
Project Leader : It’s that training mission from the Naval Air Station in Ft. Lauderdale.
Laughlin : Who flies crates like these anymore?
Project Leader : No one. These planes were reported missing in 1945.
Laughlin : But it looks brand new. Where’s the pilot? I don’t understand. Where’s the crew? Hey! How the hell did it get here?
Old Man : ¡El sol salió anoche y me cantó!
Translator : He says the sun came out last night. He says it sang to him.
[Literally : The sun came out last night and sang to me! ]
Supervisor : Ask them if they want to report officially.
Air Traffic Controller : TWA 517, do you want to report a UFO? Over. TWA 517, do you want to report a UFO? Over.
TWA Pilot : Negative. We don't want to report.
Air Traffic Controller : AirEast 31, do you wish to report a UFO? Over.
AirEast Pilot : Negative. We don’t want to report one of those, either.
Air Traffic Controller : AirEast 31, do you wish to file a report of any kind to us?
AirEast Pilot : I wouldn't know what kind of report to file, Center.
Air Traffic Controller : AirEast 31, me neither.