Takeoff, Cade Haley
In making this piece, I took on the challenge of making a simplified film with no specific narrative, beginning from a concept on a sheet of paper and ending with a single, continuous shot stitched together in After Effects. Takeoff is a non-narrative experimental short film I made for a film class to capture and abstractly build upon the sensation of flight, transitioning from an everyday scenario to a surreal one, with visual transitions that tie the film into the appearance of a single, continuous shot. Whether or not it is about space flight, imagined human flight, etc. is left to the viewer. To make the film, I used a combination of live footage, 3D animation and actual composited footage of Earth to show the viewer rising further into the air and out to the bounds of the Earth’s atmosphere before being grounded back on Earth by the sound of wind, the image of someone stargazing and the view of a city skyline. The frame occasionally centers on a small, shimmering man-made object in orbit—a satellite, to help illustrate the immensity of the scene.