A&E - THE FIRST 48 — JEFF GESS

THE FIRST 48:
SEASON 30

I created a graphics package to promote one of A&E's most successful and longest running franchises: The First 48. To advertise it’s upcoming 30th season premiere, I worked with Creative Director Jose Leiva and Art Director Jordan Doig. I concepted, designed, modelled, and animated a series of macro to wide shots of objects associated with the show in Cinema 4D, then composited it in After Effects.

THE BRIEF:

When the team approached me about working on the project, the brief was simple - let’s focus on how tiny details contribute to the bigger picture in investigating a crime. We worked with the idea of evidence photographs, which when taken at a macro detail level become almost abstract. I began to develop the different items we’d see, and how they would be shot for their close-ups and their reveals.

STYLEFRAMES:

I pitched a few possible images, and put together styleframes of each scene for the team to consider. The look would be dark and shadowy, but also clean and minimal, with our crime scene objects emerging from an inky darkness.

THE PROCESS:

I modeled each item in Cinema4D before bringing it into After Effects for compositing. Some objects were built from scratch, like the police badge and the chain-link fence, while others were augmented from base models to save time - like making an existing knife’s blade serrated, or adding eyelashes and eyebrows to an existing human head model. Textures would have to be built and adjusted between the macro and wide shots to read correctly at the different scales, and custom lighting was required for each shot as well.

THE FINAL LOOK:

We worked through several rounds of feedback and landed on a final look that was intentionally rougher and more gritty looking. We added the persistent blue and red flashing of police lights as a nod to the officers, who are the real focus of the show.