How “In Dante Veritas ebook” Made me a better designer
In December 2021, visionary Russian artist Vasily Klyukin contacted me to make a video trailer to launch his ebook called “In Dante Veritas, a sins art guide.” The e-book was inspired by the exhibition of the artist, hosted at the famous Biennale di Venezia
Creating the animated story-trailer for Vasily Klyukin’s e-book “In Dante Veritas” has been such a great experience! That is why I decided to write a post to testify to it.
Let’s have a look!
Vasily Klyukin and the 700th anniversary of Dante Alighieri’s death
For the first time in my career, the core subject of the video was not a product or service but an emotion of engaging curiosity to transmit to the viewer, which was interesting to me!
I also had the extraordinary opportunity to leave a mark during the 700th anniversary of Dante Alighieri’s death.
Being an Italian, it was simply an honor, and I was excited about it!
THE BRIEF
The brief provided by the client was very open as: “We have to show Dante that goes towards the inferno hole and introduce the e-book in an interesting and meaningful way.”
I quickly understood that there was a lot of space to fill with creativity and some good motion design!
Vasily Klyukin is an artist who stimulates me to do something different from usual.
I thought: “Vasily has something inside that wants to communicate, and he does it with a personal style. I want to use the same approach for his trailer!”
In my opinion, as motion designers, sometimes we are forced by clients’ guidelines, objectives, expectations, and references that may weaken our creativity a little bit.
That is why “In Dante Veritas” is such a unique project for me; it was a way to express myself through my job completely!
I had the opportunity to create something very original and express myself creatively, artistically, and technically.
KEY ASPECTS OF THE PROJECT
After browsing “The Sins Art Guide,” I thought that everyone could be the Dante Alighieri that visited the Inferno described by Klyukin.
The character
The viewer travels through modern sins as pollution, overpopulation, and many others.
I decided to move away from the classical Dante Alighieri’s representation and create a modern hero that wears Mondrian-style trendy sneakers and in which everyone can identify himself!
The environments
The “Dark forest” was the first environment I had to develop. To do it, I was inspired by the classic Disney animation “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.”
The anxious feeling of Snow White lost in the forest was the same I wanted to re-create for Dante.
The following key aspect to consider when creating the trailer was the environment of Inferno:
In Vasily’s Inferno, many famous people from the present and the past spend their whole lives there. I wanted to include some of them in the trailer and the name of some Sins.
In the trailer, there are images of people like Saddam Hussein, Charles Dickens, Leonardo di Caprio (who is a friend of Vasily Klyukin) Gengis Khan, and many others;
you can recognize them all in the video. They are 8, blended with handmade graffiti texts and famous paintings of authors as Picasso and Modigliani and many others.
To create the look of the images, I developed a very personal style by changing the base colors, creating eye-catching psychedelic borders, and adding distortions and handmade drawings over the subjects!
The ending
The last big task I had to face was the end of the story.
As “Divina Commedia” is a story about resilience, we wanted to leave the viewer with a positive message and see Dante finally get out of the Inferno.
By working collaboratively with the client, we decided to play a little bit with the closing sentence from “The Inferno” and leave then the perfect spot for showing the link to the website of the E-Book.
Watch the e-book, click here!
HAPPY ENDING
The project ends up successfully!
After sending the final release to the client, he replied to me by writing:
“You did a gigantic brilliant work! Thank you so much! We are amazed, and we cannot imagine how much work and talent it takes to do such a remarkable animated film.”
I really appreciated the client’s feedback, and I was happy to have contributed to such an important and successful project!
“In Dante Veritas” has already won the “Video of the day” prize from Motion Design Awards, and it is currently running to win other significant awards!
From now on, I will be even more motivated to create original content to express myself through my job!
