Pale Blue Dot Part 8 submission video.
One of our second semester projects on the visual effects graduate program at George Brown College was to produce visuals to go with a provided audio clip from a talk by Carl Sagan at Cornell University in 1994, with the eight clips from the students being combined into one short film. Pale Blue Dot refers to the dot of light representing Earth in an image of our solar system taken by Voyager 1 on February 14, 1990, and the speech highlighted how insignificant our tiny planet and petty concerns are is in the wider universe. My section was the final paragraph, quoted below, in which Sagan refers to the ability of astronomy to show us that we should cherish what we have instead of squandering it.
"It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known."
After some research and deliberation, I decided that I wanted to move from a view of the stars from Earth to a view of Earth from the stars, incorporating both realism and fancy. I hoped to capture the distant feel of the iconic Pale Blue Dot image in my work, as well as Sagan's clear call for humans to care for each other and our planet.
Having worked through several storyboard iterations to get my ideas down clearly, I produced a simple animatic to work on the timing, which highlighted that I was trying to fit a little too much into the first half of the clip. Taking the time to work this out in advance was very helpful, allowing me to refine my design prior to building everything. I produced most of the final composited pieces and effects myself in After Effects, Photoshop, Illustrator and Maya, but also used a few manipulated stock images and a stock human model. I will post the combined video when it becomes available.
The original Pale Blue Dot image, with Earth visible in the right-hand sunbeam (NASA/JPL).
My replica of the Pale Blue Dot image, stylized and enlarged for easier viewing (made in After Effects).
Original storyboards for my section (mix of Photoshop, Maya and stock images); some changes were made later to better fit the timing.
Constellations Ursa Minor and Hercules made using After Effects.