Galileo Galilei concept design. Credits: GalileoMobile / El Birque Animaciones
By Jorge Rivero González
When we were planning our first documentary movie – Bajo un Mismo Cielo – we decided that we wanted to open it with an animated short film aimed at showing the importance that astronomy had on ancient civilizations around the world as well as being appealing to children around the world. In addition, as the International Year of Astronomy 2009 commemorated the 400th anniversary of the birth of modern astronomy, we wanted to highlight the action that made it possible: the pointing of a telescope to the sky for the first time by Galileo Galilei in 1609.
The animated short film combines both classical and stop-motion techniques in order to discriminate between the scenes from the tour around astronomy on ancient civilizations and from Galileo’s studio, respectively.
One of the most difficult decisions that we faced was the design of Galileo itself. Here you can see one of the latest Galileo’s concept design. We tried to go further away from the image most people had from him, which probably comes from one of his famous portraits, and try to get a more cartoonish approach so we could connect better with children.
You can now watch the Short History of Ancient Astronomy animated short film here.
galileomobile.wordpress.com 