We’re thrilled to announce that Parnassos has been awarded a MegaGrant from Epic Games to ramp up production and help us in exploring new looks and new topics with Unreal Engine.
Parnassos: art history in motion
Parnassos is a series of 10 shorts in linear and immersive format; each episode is an adaptation of a major French poem visually reinterpreted in the style of an art movement.
The Greek mountain of Parnassos is said to be home to the Muses, goddesses of the arts. Poets have long paid homage to its name, going as far as calling themselves “parnassians” in 19th century France.
Parnassos wishes in turn to pay homage to the poets and artists who have contributed to the foundations of French art through a series of shorts, each illustrating a poem as well as an artistic movement.
Parnassos is an animated series about art history, painting, poetry, and what they tell us about the human experience. Each episode is an adaptation of a poem narrated by an invisible voice, dressed with a contemporaneous aesthetic, from baroque to post-impressionism, and set in modern stories that reveal their timeless qualities.
Through this combination, every episode will depict a moment in art history between the 16th and the 20th century, as well as a timeless representation of the human experience, from death to love, set in today’s time. The aesthetics of major art movements – among which the early years of impressionism, fauvism or the baroque vanitas – will give to each episode a unique visual identity.
An Unreal Engine Laboratory
Additionally, Parnassos functions as a series of experiments designed to explore the storytelling possibilities offered by Unreal Engine, with the ambition to unveil new pipelines and new looks, leveraging style transfer tech in production. We hope to use this MegaGrant to further push our experiments and share them with the Unreal Engine community.
Ozymandias
Watch our EbSynth demo Ozymandias to see how we were able to quickly create a short film with a unique look based on wash paintings.
Ozymandias is a proof of concept of our style transfer / texture synthesis pipeline. It is the product of three weeks of work and was created by only two people, a director and a graphic designer, to demonstrate the power of tools like EbSynth.
Le Dormeur du Val
Le Dormeur du val was created in two weeks during the Parisian quarantine. It is a preview illustrating the idea behind Parnassos and demonstrating the power and simplicity of the concept.
We’d like to thank our collaborators and supporters: Hue Dada! Productions, Tchiki Boum and Diversion Cinema; many thanks to the Epic Games MegaGrant team as well.
If you’re interested in Parnassos and would like to have a quick chat, don’t hesitate to contact us.