Experimental animated film records jazz with a Kinect

Marcin Nowrotek filmed a jazz quartet with a Kinect, then ran the recording through volumetric processors to give NEBULA an otherworldly 3D look and feel.

NEBULA is an experiment that aims at finding the link between two trends that develop simultaneously in the history of film – Lumières concept of a movie as a record of reality and Méliés's idea that uses the film as a tool for creation of imaginative worlds. NEBULA draws from both of these approaches and becomes a combination, collage, in which the recorded figurative picture is intermingled with abstract compositions being the graphic equivalent of music. The project using the volumetric filmmaking technique (RGB+D) is, on the one hand, the recording of an event (a meeting of musicians playing a jazz composition "Sleepwalker" by Maciej Obara) and, on the other, an attempt to obtain the visual experience of music by using the soundtrack of a recorded piece of music at the stage of post-production. The picture created as a result of the recording represents the "Lumières line" that aims at reflecting the reality in the most accurate way.

NEBULA (Vimeo / Marcin Nowrotek)