‘Scenes From An Urban Sunset’: Raxo’s Animated Trip Around The City

Imagine it’s Friday, around 6:00 PM. It’s a beautiful and clear autumn afternoon, rush hour has already started. The noisy and chaotic city gets ready for a well deserved weekend. The sun is slowly falling and its reddish light describes every element of the metropolis. As dusk comes, a calmer and more peaceful environment starts to emerge… That’s the setting for ‘Scenes from an Urban Sunset’, our latest animation project. Combining original 2D handcrafted, digitally painted backgrounds with 3D elements throughout the composition, we used 3D vehicles to bring to life this digital city in what has to be one of our most ambitious animated projects to date.

This project is first and foremost a study in light and colors and how these two elements interact with each other, with the metropolis and those who live there, so it was very important for us as a team and as a design studio to make sure those elements were highlighted properly and given the center stage. We wanted to convey a specific vibe, very urban and familiar for those who call any big city their home. Our starting point: making the storyboard and the proper sketches to define our settings and the flow of the short.

Manuel Freixas, our Associate Creative Director and one of the main creators behind the project, shares a bit of insight on his process: “first of all, we started with the search of video references where the main themes were the settings and the mood, stepping away from a more traditional, typical structure. After documenting ourselves, we found our narrative and its common thread. Outdoors, indoors, city, nature, noise, chaos, harmony: those were our keywords. After that, I was in charge of creating the storyboard and our first sketches, and after a few tries with animatics we finally found the right for the piece and the proper way to move from setting to setting in the video”.

For Joaquín Testa, one of our Motion Designers, making ‘Scenes from an Urban Sunset’ was a learning experience: “working on this animated short was an incredible experience that started as a passion project during our free time at Raxo and eventually grew into something else. We decided to create a visually stunning piece that showcased our art direction and style frames above all else. I had the opportunity to play multiple roles in the project, including director, illustrator, animator, and compositor and we were also fortunate to have the support of the team who helped bring our vision to life. The process was long and challenging, spanning nine months, but we were all dedicated to the project and the result was worth it. Throughout the journey, I learned a lot and gained valuable experience working with a team to create something we were all proud of.”

But no, not everything was design fun and games, as our design team hitted a few roadblocks along the way while making ‘Scenes from an Urban Sunset’ happen. On this matter, Manuel says: “the main challenge was to find our common thread for our non-traditional storytelling, something that would piece everything together without having a beginning-middle-ending. We had to get the viewer hooked with just the atmosphere/mood we created. Once we found our flow and saw we had something substantial to say, we set ourselves the challenge of taking the images to the highest level possible within our deadlines. As for the backgrounds, our main challenge there was finding a solid color palette that would evoke the right emotion for every scene, achieving a natural dusk-like progression of colors. And as for the animation itself, our main challenge was to make the 3D vehicles feel part of the world we created, integrating them with our designed animated universe in a seamless way”.

If you ask Oscar Rivera, Executive Creative Director of the project and our Chief Creative Officer/Co-founder, the hardest thing about ‘Scenes from an Urban Sunset’ was to keep it simple: “As the project progressed, I found it challenging to piece everything together without making it too complicated. It was important to make sense of everything without overcomplicating things”. But as any creative does, what Oscar enjoyed the most was the actual development process, making a simple idea evolve to its final form: “it’s my favorite part of any project. ‘SFAUS’ was actually born from a casual conversation amongst the team. It started with no clear direction or goal, but it slowly took shape and evolved as we continued to work on it. There’s something really special about seeing a project grow and come to fruition in such an organic way. In my opinion, the final result is always much more rewarding when things happen like this”.

To sum it all up, ‘Scenes from an Urban Sunset’ is an evocative animated short film that immerses you in the beauty of a city at dusk. From the hustle-and-bustle of a lively metropolis routine to the serenity of a shared sunset, this exploration of light takes you on a journey of transformation. A moveable feast of color and style; in this short, the city and its shiftling light are the primary characters, showcasing how the urban landscape can be more than concrete and steel, but a canvas for our dreams and memories to collide. Immerse yourself in this mesmerizing study of light and daily beauty, and let the golden hour shine on.

As for what’s next after ‘Scenes from an Urban Sunset’ for Raxo, Oscar has this to say: “[this project] sparked our curiosity and motivated us to continue exploring and experimenting with diverse styles and techniques. Our main goal as an agency is to showcase our skills and continuously explore new possibilities. We strive to exercise our creative muscles within the studio”, so you can expect more out-of-the-box, visually stunning pieces like this one in the near future.

Executive Creative Director: Oscar Rivera
Direction: Manuel Freixas & Joaquin Testa
Storyboard & Colorscript: Manuel Freixas
BG Design: Manuel Freixas & Joaquin Testa
3D Art, Animation & Composition: Joaquin Testa & Oscar Rivera
Edit & CC: Manual Freixas & Joaquin Testa
Production: Ana Beltran & Milagros Salas Carrillo
Graphic Design: Juan Ignacio Paolantonio, Francia Vallasciani & Luciana Miglioranza
Sound Design: Yan Carlos Colon & Pawel Orlow