CASE STUDY: Brightcore energy geothermal

The Task at hand

I was asked to create a 3D Animation to be used for B-Roll in a video project showcasing the installation of geothermal technology in the basement of The Beresford, a luxury, 23-floor "pre-war" apartment building in New York City.

The video had already been shot and edited during construction phase. But there was a gap where the script called for a graphic to explain the functionality of the geothermal technology.

I had a 19 second gap allotted to create an animated visualization and to match the script.

The Beresford, New York City

Script/Voiceover (1:43 – 2:02 – 19 seconds)

“Geothermal systems leverage the consistent temperatures beneath the earth’s surface.”

 

“Pipes are installed deep underground.”

 

“In the colder months, the system extracts heat from the ground through these pipes and transfers it into the building.”

 

“In the summer the process reverses, pulling heat from the building and dissipating it back into the earth.”

Stills from the edited video

The build

Always the first step is to research the topic. I didn’t know a lot about geothermal technology, so I spent some time researching this subject.

Then I watched the edited video that was sent to me with the script. I didn’t have access to go on-site, so relied completely on the video for visual reference.

Once I felt that I had an understanding of project, I began to recreate Beresford basement as a 3D model in Cinema 4D.

The basement of the Beresford with Geothermal Piping System Installed

In order to speed up production while simplifying the visual for the viewer, I created the pump system with a single Pump Line. This was enough to show the system’s water flow and function. The 3D modeling, lighting, texturing and animation took approximately 4 days.

Once the necessary animations and graphics were created, I brought all pieces into Adobe After Effects for assembly.

I composited the animation files together and used the audio from the video project to create the correct pacing for the animation. this phase took approximately one day to complete.

3D visualization of the Piping system and how it works

The Result

The animation was handed off to the video team to insert in the video project. Total time to build the 3D animation was approximately 1 week. The final animation can be seen at 2:13 - 2:33 in video.

Final Video for Social Media