Practitioner: John Narun

Previously I created a post about Veneno and had mention John Narun who worked with them on visuals for concerts and other shows. I posted saying that I couldn’t post the videos of his work but I am glad to say that I have found a way of doing it and I will share these and talk about them.

This is a visual backdrop made for the Spice Girls world tour and by watching it you can appreciate all the effort that has gone into animating it, as I know myself from animating in 3D it can be quite complex. I feel a lot of mathematics have gone into calculating the angles of movement in this piece, especially towards the end where you see the famous trade make of the Spice Girls, the Union Jack Flag that Geri Halliwell made famous in a performance, and to which many people identify them with the flag. The timing of the music and animation are very accurate as the music changes so does the movements of the objects. For all this looks very over powering, most of the elements are easy to create in 3D such as the coloured boxes with their textures and colours. I think this was created using Maya and the shapes have the material/texture called phong or blinn on them to give them the shiny plastic or metallic effect. Then after that Narun possibly decided on to turn a setting called raytracing on the objects to make them even shinier. Then using lights in the 3D environment extenuate the shiny effect.

This visual backdrop was for a Christina Aguilera concert for the song ‘Fighter’. This video I feel represents the song extremely well with its hard dirty look it defiantly has aggression and reflects the song name very well. I really like how the most important words appear on screen in time with the music this punches its way to the audience. This would look great live I imagine alongside whatever routine the artist performs on stage. I imagine this was greeted using light trails made by a torch or something similar with a long exposure camera to get the trails effect. Then these images may have gone into Photoshop for some editing then onto animating the images in After Effects using Masks and Filters. Or perhaps there is a tool in After Effects that allow you to create light trails?

This visual backdrop is presented in how you would see the layout of the screens on the actual stage. It was created for a band called Rain and the song is called ‘Me’. I really like how this video is presented because you can appreciate all the different elements of what the show looks as if you were really there. Yet again and as expected the music is in sync perfectly with the motion graphics on screen. The animation is also very smooth. I think all the main graphics were created in Photoshop then using the 3D tools in After Effects Narun would of done the animation.

I really love this kind of stuff, as it’s lively and powerful at the same time. It also provokes emotions as these visuals are intended to do to their audience.

all videos are from http://www.johnnarun.com/ - visit for more information and videos!