I little over two years ago, I began drawing pictures with rockets in them. I do not know why, but one evening I wanted to do an exercise for myself with some constraints, which were: using colors I do not usually use; using a square format (in tribute to the old 8mm format); sometimes it could be abstract, and everything was to be about a rocket. A couple of weeks later I discovered the music of Apparat and the track _Granular Bastard_. I thought it would be amazing to do a three-and-a-half-minute animation of a rocket taking off.

I really wanted an “atmospheric movie”, not necessarily a deep story but just beautiful colors, good composition and a rocket as a main character. It is what I like in Godfrey Reggio’s film _Koyaanisqatsi_, the earth and life is the main character. It is not something we are used to seeing, and that is why it is beautiful. I have even written a script (which I know is crazy for a music video).

I began the animation in summer 2009. I listened to the music repeatedly and first cut the music in different parts, to get an idea of which sequence to put with which part of the music. First there are the computers waking up, then everything starts working, the astronauts enter in the rocket, everything warms up, silence, and finally take off. With one or two exceptions, I drew all the images for the animation in color.

The image of the smoke one was really important for the stylization of the smoke and fire. I really wanted to keep these circle particles to represent the smoke. 

I did not really change the animation. I did it at the very beginning and tried as far as possible to stick to it. I think nothing changed for a year and half. The graphics evolved but not the editing. From the beginning to the end this was the kind of editing I wanted.

The beginning of the movie was a tricky part (because at the beginning I really wanted something very abstract in the way of the buttons and computers switching on). It is not something you can do in animation; you can do a rough “placeholder” but it is something that builds by itself while you are doing it.
From beginning to end, Chris Ware, Hans Richter, Len Lye, Stanley Kubrick and Godfrey Reggio’s _Qatsi_ trilogy were huge references.


Links: http://vimeo.com/28760604

Story : Céline Desrumaux
Director : Céline Desrumaux
Design : Céline Desrumaux
Animation : Céline Desrumaux
character animation : Florent Remize
compositing : Céline Desrumaux
Music : "Granular bastard" from APPARAT

Céline Desrumeaux (FR) studied at the Supinfocom computer graphics school. She graduated with the award-winning short film *Yankee Gal* before moving to London, where she lives and works with Yann Benedi as duo directors at Passion Pictures.