Nikos Deja Vu - Substantia - Short Film Substantia We had to create fluids, fire, freezing and melting ice, energy fields and a growing plant. Mayec Rancel & Jose Angel Soto met at the CICE 3D Animation and Digital Post Production class in Madrid. Two young animators with a story to tell, they were fitted into a project together outside of this school at the end of the September 2005. This project became Substantia. ''Substantia is a metaphor. It describes a strange universe somewhat like our outer space, inhabited by heart-shaped planets that are constantly exposed to fire meteors speeding around them. There are also mysterious tear-drops that fall through this space. They are rare and few, but once in a while, a planet's path coincides with a tear's, and from the encounter springs life. Thus begins an eternal cycle of life and death, plenitude and suffering, and seemingly random events take shape into a larger scheme. With Substantia we were trying to tell a universal story, says Mayec. One that would give a sense of meaning to all the seemingly random events in life that make us suffer or thrive, grow or wither. That includes many different ideas like friendship, love, learning, death, suffering, fear and loss.'' Concept design The overall goal of the concept design of Substantia was to express the emotion with just basic elements of visual symbols: colors, shapes, strong contrasts and textures. The team needed to tell a lot with very little, so that it could be felt ...