SALERNO, ITALY — Motion graphics and VFX artist Enrico Lambiase (www.enricolambiase.com) recently completed a work on personal project titled Amniotica. The experimental short is designed to bring awareness to how a pregnant mother’s emotional state can impact the developing fetus in her womb. The film is based on a real 3D scan of Lambiase’s daughter.
According to Lambiase, 4D scans were provided by the clinic when the mother was in for routine checks during the pregnancy.
“I used it to create a volume in Houdini and the resulting mesh has been imported into Cinema 4D for rendering and camera animation,” he explains. “It's not really a recreation of the embryo, it's the actual embryo, in different stages of pregnancy. Of course, it's been rendered using CG lights and materials, but the base mesh is not being modified from the original echography.”
“This camera (was chosen) because of its high light sensitivity,” he explains. “I didn't want to use bright lights, as my daughter was just a few months old when shooting the close-ups of hands and feet through a frosted panel, so I used a really high ISO and minimal lighting.”
He collaborated with Echoic, an audio company based in Bristol, UK, for the project’s music and sound design.
“I wanted to experiment with two different audio treatments: inside and outside the womb. The result is a distinct sound that lets the viewer feel how the child could hear the outside sounds from the womb.”
VFX compositing was performed by Valentina Bartiromo — Lambiase‘s partner and Elisa's mother, making it a true family collaboration.