Song of Unborn
Directed by Jess Cope
"I took Carl Sagan”s quote, "We are all made of star stuff” and based the film around that idea for Song of Unborn. Using abstract imagery and different styles of animation, the video represents the human form developing from the inside of its body instead of inside the womb. This is the first film that I have made with next to no narrative. I focused more on using the evolution of animation as a way to represent the evolving foetus in utero. The combination of space, sky, sea and fish just seemed to be the direction I wanted to take it. The paper cut out fish at the start represent sperm, the string rays are red blood cells through veins and the jellyfish are nerves. The whales represent the transition from gill-bearing aquatic fish that can only survive underwater to air breathing mammals that give birth to live young. It depicts the transition from a baby inside the mother's womb to the birth and its first breath.
I enjoyed exploring new animation techniques and I am pretty pleased with the way this video turned out, but after experiencing the process of working with CGI I would undoubtedly stick to traditional, old school, hand made, in camera effects. My favourite scene is the space scene. I created it on a multiplane and poked millions of tiny holes in a piece of black wrap that sat at the back of the set. The space dust was created with talcum power on different layers of glass and the planet/egg was made out of a gel ball that florists use. The fish were made out of card and painted with metallic paint to catch the natural light. By using a real camera zoom it gave the magical illusion of depth and space." - Jess Cope