When viewing shorts, it’s easy to be lured by Hollywood-style plotting, explosions and photorealistic animation. ‘Voyager’ reminds us the abstract can be just as compelling...
Since the debut of RedShark News, we’ve featured many short films, most of them sci-fi spectacles or animated works, and with good reason. The short format video has become the artistic breeding ground for new talents trying to break into the Industry and veterans ironing out new wrinkles.
Luke Busby fits in that latter category. Formerly a music producer for such well-known acts as Frou Frou, M.I.A., and his own group, Temposhark, Busby had a change of heart and ditched the music biz for career in ‘Motion Graphic Design’. From hobnobbing with famous celebrities to taking classes at London’s Ravensbourne University, Busby dutifully learned his new trade, developing his style of abstract animation timed to electronic music (of his making).
While he spends much of his time on client work, a one-off personal project is capturing the attention of the public. ‘Voyager’_The Sounds of Earth, in Bubsy’s own words, was “inspired by the space probes of the 1970s (Voyager 1 and 2). This animation presents an abstract interpretation of the journey the probes took through our solar system and what wonders they revealed to our planet.”
While viewing Voyager, Busby’s technical skill is immediately apparent, as the clean animations unfold with mathematical precision and synchronicity. But the most impressive aspect of the video is its trance-like quality. Voyager is a mesmerizing, transcendent, interstellar kaleidoscope, or perhaps an abstract journey into the mind of the artist. Either way, it’s proof that you don’t have to be tethered to visual realism to make a captivating short.