
Life in the Clouds | |||
Work in progress | |||
FFB 2025 premiere: | No | ||
Producer: | Brno Observatory and Planetarium | ||
Director: | Tomáš Tichý | ||
Contact: | Trailer: | - | |
Released: | 10/25 | Length: | 2:00 |
3D: | No | Res: | 4K |
Sound: | Stereo | FPS: | 30 |
A 2D full-dome documentary with featured parts about the mystery of the clouds based primarily on visually appealing time-lapses, aerial shots and expressive visual animations, told from the perspective of three characters. Protagonists never speak directly to the camera, but their voice is heard in the background as they comment on their thoughts and feelings. An astronomer – a young lady working at a super-modern observatory high in the mountains, a sport glider pilot from a small airport, and a little girl whose passion is painting clouds. All of them share a love of nature and a fascination with cloud structures\' variability, power and massiveness. The narrative point of view of each protagonist is different, however – the astronomer, due to the high altitude of the observatory, emphasizes the higher cloud layers and the events at the upper parts of the troposphere, while the pilot is more connected to the low-level clouds and physically perceives the danger and power of natural phenomena. Their world collides with the mid-level mountain clouds when flying in the wave. With the magic of a child\'s imagination, the girl captures the emotions associated with looking upwards, especially with thunderstorms. Their stories are loosely interspersed over the course of a day with the typical summer development of convective clouds, the passage of a cold front, and the evening cloud dissolving. Each protagonist has a different daily rhythm and a different angle of view of the sky concerning the subject of their activity. Dramatic shots and hyper-lapse sequences of cloud development are alternating with the calm and solitary intimacy of the protagonists\' experiences. The narrative begins at dawn at the astronomical observatory where the observing night ends. As the day progresses, we move gradually upwards from the ground, where the fog dissolves, the air begins to warm, and thermals and the first cumulus form. Glider traffic begins at the airport, the pilot takes off in between the cumulus clouds. From afar, the cirrus clouds are slowly moving in, marking the approaching front, so we reach the highest cloud levels. In the afternoon a cold front arrives with strong thunderstorms. Low cloud persists in the valleys in the evening and at night, but at higher altitudes, there is cloudless sky again and the cleared air promises excellent observing conditions at our familiar observatory. The story ends where it began, the diurnal cycle has closed. In the final shot, a camera attached to a stratospheric balloon flies away from the Earth\'s surface between layers of clouds to an altitude of about 20 km, finally revealing a view of the cloud-covered Earth.