Plains Of Yonder directors Katrina Crawford and Mark Bashore gather the forces of London prodco Nexus Studios and Barcelona motion house Makmac for a project they call “one giant science experiment.”

Combining adventures in both live-action and CG cymatics, the team, including Plains of Yonder CD Anthony Vitagliano, conjures an appropriately epic and magical opening title sequence for the eight-part Amazon series “Rings of Power”, one of the most ambitious television productions ever.

Katrina Crawford and Mark Bashore: “Tolkien imagined a universe that was ‘sung into existence’ by angelic beings known as the ‘Ainur’. We really loved the idea of a main title built from the world of sound.

“Cymatics is a natural phenomenon whereby sound can be made visible to the eye, achieved by running frequencies across a plate covered in a fine powder. It’s science and math, but it hits you as feral magic.
 

“Cymatics is a natural phenomenon whereby sound can be made visible to the eye… It’s science and math, but it hits you as feral magic.”

 
“It’s something that feels primordial and looks like the passage of time across millennia. Tolkien’s world encapsulates time and space on a grand scale, so the fleeting nature and transformational motion of the sand felt right. That and the primal push and pull of unseen forces gave us the drama we were looking for.

“But real-life cymatics doesn’t form perfect mountains and trees, so we knew the final piece would need to be a blend of live action and artistic CG particle and VFX work.

“To produce these effects, we reached out to Nexus Studios and digital studio Makmac in Barcelona. We knew we needed to create a team that would really work to ‘break’ CG particle algorithms in a way that reflected the real motion of cymatics in all its unrestrained glory.

“We shot the cymatic motion on two stages simultaneously. In the end, we used about twenty different live-action plates which were mixed with 3D simulation for every shot.”

Watch the making of video:
 
 

 
 

 
Client: Amazon Prime

Production: Plains of Yonder
Directors: Katrina Crawford, Mark Bashore
Creative Director: Anthony Vitagliano
Art Director: Katrina Crawford, Anthony Vitagliano
Editor: Mark Bashore
Producers: Jennifer Senkler, Jon Derovan

Animation/VFX: Nexus Studios
Animation Director: Fernando Domínguez Cózar
EP: Laura Breaden, Colin Davis
Producer: Nicole López Naguil, Josephine Gallagher
Production Manager: Edith Chappey
VFX Supervisor: Germán Díez
Houdini Artist: Nico Domerego
Compositor: Alexandre Gaudiano, Chiara Feriani, Victori Jalabert, Stéphane Lugiery
Animator: Dylan White
VFX Editor: Mark van Heusden

Digital Studio: Makmac
Art Director/Lead 3D Artist: Mauro Gimferrer
3D Artist: Marcos Coral, J.A Duran

Live Action: 37 Films
1st Assistant Director: Alex Pozuelo
Executive Producer: Héctor Bobo
Producer: Pilar de Andrés
Head of Production: Josué Corral
Executive Coordinator: Lucía Gonzalez
Production Manager: Alvaro Regalado
Production Coordinator: Belén Zauer
Runner: Ismael Vera, Antonio Gómez
VFX Assistant: Lucía Colom
DOP: Pablo Vallejo
Phantom Operator: Carlos Alvarez
Bolt Operator: Nicolás Alsina, Marc Debon
DIT: Vico Martín, Carlo Rho
Making of Operator: Carlos García Vidal
Gaffer: Javier Villareal
Spark/Studio Assistant: Robinson Berrio
Art Technical Advisor: Victor del Hoyo
Sand Artist: Jimena Aragoneses
On set Editor: Diego Falcone

Additional Visual Effects: The Key VFX
VFX Production Coordinator: Blanca Escudero, Silvia Cerrada Jiménez

Calligrapher: Daniel Reeve

Music: Howard Shore