Key

The Key - Senior Thesis

The Key is a short animated visual interpretation of an excerpt from the book Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close. The script derives from a fictional letter written by the legendary Stephen Hawking to a young fan who writes to him often in the hopes of becoming his protégé. I interpreted the main driving theme behind this narrative as the idea of balance between Science & Art. In the letter, Hawking confesses to the young boy a long kept secret. While addressing his desire to be his protégé, he describes his life as an astrophysicist, but also contemplates the meaning and purpose of his work, if there was any to begin with at all.

For this project, i very much wanted to handle most of the 2D animation, but there were some parts that required some 3D firepower. I got my talented friends Omid and Roy to help with the Copernicus Globe and Newton’s cradle. I then composited both shots in After Effects.