The Bitcoin Movement

STRUCK WITH INSPIRATION

I was struck with inspiration to embark on a new project that pulls from my entire body of animated art and create a collection that combines all that art to reflect both: my personal experience in the bitcoin and crypto space and the core ideas I’ve strived to communicate through my art this whole time.

THE BITCOIN MOVEMENT

The title, The Bitcoin Movement, reflects Bitcoin’s journey as a social movement that challenges traditional financial systems, embodies technological and societal shifts, and moves progressively into the future. Each artwork in the series—Uprising, Revolution, and Forward—represents a unique perspective on the Bitcoin Movement.

GOALS 

My two main goals with The Bitcoin Movement collection are:

1) To depict the progression of the Bitcoin movement over the years in a way that reflects my experience and role as an artist

2) To combine elements from all of my archived animations to create a visual spectacle that tells the larger story of my art and tests the limits of visual overload.

SPREADING THE MESSAGE

The overarching theme of my art is to spread the message that “bitcoin is better money”. In other words, there are serious problems with the fiat monetary system, and I see Bitcoin as the best solution to those problems. That’s what my art is all about.

THE IDEA JUST CLICKED

My idea to make art with a hyper-saturated tableau was first inspired by seeing the works of artists like Hieronymus Bosch and Pieter Bruegel..

When I saw those pieces, the idea just clicked for me. There are so many things happening simultaneously on the global stage in regards to macroeconomic events, financial markets, and central bank monetary policy, while Bitcoin continues to develop and mature into a serious contender of a global financial system.

I have all this animated art designed to tell stories about bitcoin and the money system, and I can break all those animations down into individual loops and bring them together in massive video collages that connect all the themes in my art.

PROCESS OVERVIEW

Concept Drafting

First, I created compositions in illustrator to draft out the concepts for each piece, where I composed all the individual elements and screen shots from each animated artwork in each composition, placing, scaling and juxtaposing them all together to tie all the visual themes together in ways that tell the larger story of the bitcoin movement through my art.

Animated Composition

Once the visual concepts are all drafted, the workflow moves over to adobe after effects to begin creating the animated compositions. Instead of using static elements and screen shots to put together mock-up compositions, here I used individual alpha MOVs (video elements with transparent backgrounds) to place the artwork directly into the animation project without the need to crop or rotoscope each of those individual elements.  

Loops, Cameras, and Custom Clips

Each element was placed into compositions, looping keyframes were set, and individual compositions were connected by section into a master composition for each piece. I worked with my video producer over the course of multiple weeks to re-render dozens of clips as well as creating custom renders with small corrections, different angles and camera perspectives and place all these elements into the animation projects before I was happy with the final composition for each.

VFX and Backgrounds

Once landscapes, animated scenes, and characters were all placed, backgrounds and other visual effects were created using a combination of VFX tools in after effects and archival footage to fit the theme of each artwork. In the case of both Uprising and Revolution, the backgrounds were created with a strictly thematic aesthetic, to create suitable backdrops for each section. In contrast, the backgrounds for Forward were created to reflect Bitcoin's market cycles, referring to specific sections of the historical price chart also showcased in the piece.

Sound Design

I designed the sound tracks for each piece using licensed music by Tenacious Orchestra and layered in some subtle sound effects to accentuate some animated scenes. The original tracks: Triumph of Light (Uprising), Red Alert (Revolution), and Speeding up (Forward) were cut, remixed, and looped to fit according to the timing and loop in/out points of the animations.

Optimizing Videos

The final step in the process was to optimize final videos and increase the frame rate from 30 to 60 frames per second for each piece to create a smoother viewing experience, using Topaz Video AI. Due to the speed of the camera scroll and fast movements in select animated elements, some elements were difficult to focus on, and could only be seen clearly when paused. Increasing the frame rate to 60 fps did wonders to make the animations smoother and details more clear throughout each animated piece.  

3 PIECES TO REFLECT MY EXPERIENCE IN BITCOIN

UPRISING

Uprising depicts a symbolic progression from a Fiat-based world to a world based on Bitcoin. In ‘Uprising’, we start out in a fiat hell, rise into a conflict between the fiat money system and bitcoin, witness bitcoin’s triumph over fiat, and finally reach the heights of a bitcoin-based future.

REVOLUTION

Revolution takes a different visual approach from the more journey-oriented ‘Uprising’ and ‘Forward’ pieces, bringing hundreds of visual elements together in one giant composition to capture the entirety of the Bitcoin revolution. Similar to a printed piece of art or a painting, the full story is displayed all together and uses a symmetrical composition to create balance.

FORWARD

Forward uses the historical Bitcoin price chart from 2017 to 2024 moving forward through time with animated scenes, characters, and backgrounds arranged according to Bitcoin’s market cycles. Bull markets are filled with cyberpunk style elements, angelic figures, and bullish green backgrounds, while the bear markets are filled with elements symbolizing the fiat banking system and red for negative market sentiment.

CAPTURING THE ZEITGEIST OF THE BITCOIN MOVEMENT

The Bitcoin Movement is more than just a visual spectacle - it’s a collection of narrative pieces that capture the zeitgeist of the Bitcoin movement—one that transcends borders and empowers individuals through the promise of a decentralized and transparent financial future.

The three-piece animated collection is set to release May 22nd on NiftyGateway.com