Short Pick Of The Day: ‘Deep Down’ by Maciek Janicki

“Deep Down is a new song and short film by Maciek Janicki. A man materializes in a foreign world and starts his journey towards the center of the fantastical city. Reality is vibrating to the music and visitor gets surrounded by flying sound particles. Architecture in this city lies somewhere between San Francisco and the ’70s vision of what the future would look like. Bold colors and smooth elements coexist together and create a hallucinogenic visual aesthetic. Buildings are dancing to the rhythm of the beat and magical flora follows along.”

Film and song by Maciek Janicki, U.S., 2020.

Notes from the filmmaker:

When I composed “Deep Down” I always knew what the visuals should look like. First step was to create a very high level imaginary map of the city and to start thinking about various elements that will create it. In the meantime I divided the song into separated stems – one .wav file for each instrument.

I used the C4D sound effector and some basic scripting to link sound frequencies with various parameters and animations. I did series of tests where I linked music with the movements and it worked great. Later, I sculpted the main character and started working on the buildings and components to be driven by the sounds.

To add organic and unpredictable feel I created a world that moves and reacts automatically. In this way it also became really fun experience because I was always being surprised by the results. One thing, that always helps me with big ecosystems is a good organization. I use layers, bake dynamics, use multi instances and I always try to run my projects with the highest frame rate possible.