Istanbul Seaport

I worked for the amazing Squint/Opera London between 2010 and 2015 and learned so much. They have a great creative vision there and many of the projects I worked on over those years are still my favourites to this date, including this one: Istanbul Seaport.

A mixture of live action and 3D, this film has a strong narrative of a local fisherman who finds himself in the centre of the new seaport development forming around him. I was involved in many of the shots for this, my favourite being the shot of the promenade, shown below.

For this shot I laid out and animated virtually everything in the scene – the people, sunshades, the floating jetty, water, boats – and the best part (though barely visible in the final shot as it was cut off) – I made watery footsteps for the 3D character walking along the jetty which only appeared after he crossed through the wet patch.

Other shots I handled were the majority of the cruise liner shots, a couple of which are shown below. The cruise ship itself was a stock model, and I added the lights, water, wake and animation, as well as modelling, texturing and animation of the pier components.

Two of my shots, with lighting and lots of animated assets including the boat, pier components, water and wake, with animated people added. The ship was a stock model but all other pier assets I modelled and textured.

There is a in-depth making-of article regarding the whole project on Ronen Bekerman’s website here: https://www.ronenbekerman.com/istanbul-seaport-by-squint-opera/

Company website: https://squintopera.com/