SMOTION Rocket short promo

When Christmas came around this year, I promised myself a long break from the computer. However between Boxing Day and New Years Eve I had an idea for a looping Gif that just wouldn’t go away…

Maybe it was seeing Star Wars ‘Rise Of Skywalker’, more likely it was binge watching Apple TV+’s excellent series ‘For All Mankind’ that gave inspiration, but using the excuse of ‘catching up on some emails’ I built the rocket fairly fast in Cinema4D and made the initial looped Gif below.

“My favourite shot is the wide angle blast off shot, as the rocket accelerates, a flock of birds flies across the scene, because hasn’t that *always* happened when you’ve watched a rocket launch?”

However as soon as that was complete, ideas for other more complicated shots started to sprang to mind. Before long i was creating emitters with low poly smoke plumes and fiery glows all over the place. My favourite shot is the wide angle blast off shot, as the rocket accelerates, a flock of birds flies across the scene, because hasn’t that always happened when you’ve watched a rocket launch?

Once i had the idea of panning into the window, the idea of the screaming astronaut and CHAOS in the cockpit came to life. This meant i could indulge my love of creating animated HUD screens inspired by the likes of Territory Studio. Making 2D layers 3D in After Effects is so easy, and then adding distortion and glitch effects really adds to the final illusion.

“Maybe it was seeing Star Wars ‘Rise Of Skywalker’...more likely; it was binge watching Apple TV+’s excellent series ‘For All Mankind’ that gave inspiration...”

Even though it’s really fast, I really love the out of control rocket overlaying my logo animation at the end. There’s something really pleasing about the colour combination.

Music and Sound

The final touch was to take the silent After Effects edit into Premiere Pro and add sound FX. Once the booms and low roars were added, my speakers were shaking, and the rocket’s movement really came to life. The chaos in the cockpit scene was a chance to have some real fun with sound, layering and layering until the cacophony was about right.

Finally, although i can’t lay claim to composing the music per se, it’s inspired by the many space/exploration pieces i researched, i played and put all that together in Garageband and mixed it in. Lift off.