Story
Elpida Panourgia
Direction
Elpida Panourgia
Graphics / Layout / Concept Art / Backrounds
Elpida Panourgia
2D and 3D Animation
Elpida Panourgia
Camera / Compositing / Editing
Elpida Panourgia
Production
Elpida Panourgia / Bournemouth / United Kingdom / 2015
Music
Brono Culais (not original)
Sound Design
Elpida Panourgia
The Journey Home.
The journey of Arion, an ancient musician in the form of a dolphin, who travels back to his roots summoned by the sound of his lyre, in order to revive his dolphin friends and his own forgotten identity.
The melody of a forgotten ancient lyre sounds at the bottom of the ocean, as a fish swims accidentally close to the instrument. This sound is heard by Arion, the dolphin, who starts travelling through the ocean in order to reach the source of the sound. Arion enters the underwater ruins of an ancient palace (Knossos Palace). The dolphin swims between the ruins and the shattered, in which paintings of other dolphins are depicted. As Arion swims near those paintings, the dolphins come alive as colorful spirits and dance together with Arion, celebrating their reunion and their new journey together.
3D Modelling / Rigging / 3D Animation
Autodesk Maya 2015
Concepts / 2D Background creation / Final Texturing
Adobe Photoshop CS6
UV Unwrapping
Headus UV Layout program
Effects / Compositing
Adobe After Effects / Nuke
Editing
Adobe Premiere Pro
This film was inspired both in story and style from the Greek Ancient History and Mythology.
The general style of the film is based on the style of the paintings that exist in the Minoan frescoes and pottery of the ancient palace of Knossos, in Crete, Greece. The Minoan art is full of symbols and wonderful designs. This project is a 3d animation project, but the final style is a cartoon look, 2d shaded 3d film, that does not look at all like 3d. Concept art was made with great care, in order for the film to look as much 2d as possible with great attention to detail, style and atmosphere. In this film, 2d and 3d animation are merged together.
The inspiration for the main character, came from a Greek myth from the ancient mythology. According to the myth, in ancient Greece there was a famous and skilled kitharode, singer & Dionysiac poet, called Arion. The myth says that one day Arion sailed from Corinth to Sicily in order to sing in a singing contest there. In his return home though, Arion was attacked on board of the ship by the sailors, who they wanted to steal his gold. As the sailors wanted Arion dead, Arion asked them to grand him a last favor, to let them sing one last song. At the last notes of his song, Arion jumped into the water with his Lyre. But dolphins had been listening to Arion’s song and came to save him from drowning. Arion was saved and rode all the way back home on the back of a dolphin.
In the story of the animation, Arion, the singer, in a dolphin form, is summoned by the sound of his forgotten Lyre, that stayed at the bottom of the ocean after his rescue. Arion after listening to the tune of his Lyre again, returns back to Knossos Palace, in order to find something lost, his home and the dolphin friends that saved his life and wake them up from their deep sleep in order to start their new journey together.
The first culture in history that seems to have mythology associated with the dolphin was the Minoan in Greece. Minoans used to be the civilization with the biggest navy in Mediterranean Sea during ancient times. They left few written words about dolphins, but they did leave beautiful murals in the walls of their palaces, especially in Knossos Palace in Crete. There are a lot of murals and frescos in the palace, but the most important and interesting of all for our story, is the fresco that was found at the Megaron of the Queen. In this fresco painting, which is called “Fresco of the Dolphins”, four dolphins are depicted swimming above a doorway.
According to historical facts, Knossos Palace, was destroyed by a combination of an earthquake and the invasion of Mycenaeans around 1450 BC. But for a long time, the cause of the destruction was believed to be a big wave-tsunami that was caused by the eruption of the volcano of Thera (Santorini) in 1600 BC. This eruption did happen but only caused more damage to the previous destruction. So it is only natural that many researchers believe that Plato’s mythical Atlantis, was actually Knossos Palace.
