If you watched The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, you’ve been through a few episodes and will find the show’s surprisingly engaging trailer. If like me, you’re wondering what exactly is dealing with all those shapes, and all that stuff. sand, it turns out there’s a very cosmic explanation for it.
Game designer Alexander King recently wondered the same thing before it hit him: the shapes made up aren’t signs, or vertices, they’re Chladni figures, named after the house German physicist and musician Ernst Chladni. These are basically shapes formed by something light (like sand) when sound resonates through them on a flat surface.
After his twitter stream blew up, the creative director of the team responsible for the credit, Anthony Vitagliano, answered by saying, yes, that’s exactly what they did, before saying that the reason this process was chosen for the sequence is related to Tolkien’s writings.
As this blog about credits explains:
Inspired by JRR Tolkien’s Ainur, immortal angels who sing songs so beautiful that the world is made of their own sounds, we’ve come up with the main title sequence “built from the world.” sound”.
Cymatics is a natural phenomenon that enables the eye to see sound. Vibrations of fine particles on flat surfaces display prominent symmetrical patterns that reflect sound frequencies. Informatics are understood by physicists and mathematicians, but to us they are nothing short of magic.
The sequence evokes an ancient and invisible force that struggles to be seen. Symbols form, flow, push, and disappear as quickly as they come. Unpredictable sonic fields create fleeting images of conflict and harmony moving in stride with Howard Shores’ opening point.
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An array of games from 2K have been bundled together. You can pay what you want to support the cause, but if you want access to some of the big hits like Borderlands 3, The Bioshock Collection, XCOM: The Ultimate Collection, and Sid Meier’s Civilizatrion VI, you’ll have to pay at least $16. But hey, that’s hardly anything compared to the $663 value you’re getting from all 18 games combined.
There you go. If you thought they were a little slow, or dull, maybe this week you can approach the credits armed with this deep cut and appreciate them a little more?
