THE DEVIL IN THE WHITE CITY

Design / animation

Title sequence for a series based on the book by Erik Larson.

Background

The Devil in the White City is a historical nonfiction account of the years leading up to the 1893 Chicago World Fair- the story of the architect who worked to make it a reality, as well as the story of the man who hid in the shadows of the fair to become America’s first serial killer. Woven through the two narratives is the architectural theme, as Daniel Burnham planned a gleaming white city, and HH Holmes drew plans for what would come to be known as his murder castle.

The aim of this title sequence was to emulate a 19th century architectural draft, but also incorporate moving shadows to create a sense of forboding and running out of time. The dark secrets hidden in the shadows of the fair are reflected in the transition from pristine neo-classical architecture to darker, confused and abstract forms.

Reference and Inspiration

Though most of the buildings of the world fair no longer exist, there is thankfully plenty of documentation in the form of architectural drawings and photographs. I took inspiration for the design from conceptual architectural drawings and collages, which have an amazing quality of confusion and distorted reality to them.

Process

Using free models on the internet I kitbashed together approximations of the main buildings of the fair and a more freeform approach to the abstract elements, and modeled more precise details in Cinema4D.

To achieve the flat look of architectural elevation drawings, I placed the camera at a far distance with a long focal distance.

In order to have a pencil sketch texture that would react to the light I created a library of pencil/paper textures and applied the textures in Cinema4D using the hatch shader.

I rendered and composited together various depth, ambient occlusion and shadow passes in order to achieve a look that resembles drawings on flat paper.

Click through to see composite

I clipped small details from public domain architectural drawings to add subtle details to the animation. I didn’t think anyone would notice, but I wanted there to be a bit of subtle depth in the illusion of realism.

The music is “Lovegood”, by Alexander Desplat.