First of all, I'm going to have to break down the song I chose. What I actually want to represent with the song, is the sense of grandeur that the song invokes in you. It slowly builds up to it over time, and then fades back into a quiet lull, as if preparing for the next storm. Its a song that clearly distinguishes between the strong, fast parts and the calm, slow parts. Thus, I want to make a composition that also has this distinguishing feature, with different components having different weights, but still being balanced overall. The color and lighting both help to achieve such an effect, by having sources of light to represent the chorus of the song, and the areas around it being the pre-chorus.

This song can also be split up into 3 parts, with each part lasting approximately 2 minutes. Each starts off with a pre-chorus that is calm and slowly building up to its stronger counter-part, which it then ends off with. However, each part has a slightly different tone and beat has well. Also, when I was listening to this song, the emotions I felt at each part were different. During the first part, it is the first time that the sense of grandeur comes through in the song, and the dramatic tones instantly give of a chilling effect. But as the second part rolls around, the listener is prepared for the tone, and the buildup has been grim so far. The second part comes off as a journey, filled with sorrow and drama. The third part would be the climax, almost entirely made up of strong, fast elements. Despite having similar chilling tones, there is a definite sense of warmth as we listen to this part. The song is coming to a close, and there is a feeling of resolution.

In the end, I realized this song had two major concepts that I wanted to convey. One was that grand overarching feeling of brilliance you get when listening to it, and the second is the different emotions stirred up from the 3 different parts. I decided to make 2 compositions and merge them into 1 as the first involves combining all the elements of the song but the latter would relate to breaking them up. The final composition would show both separation and combination. 

A sense of grandeur to me is something that is invoked by nature, especially after seeing the works of Ansel Adams. And so, I decided to make a composition with clouds. Clouds because I plan to use light and clouds have a very visually appealing blending effect with light. I've also seen many drawings where different colored clouds bring about completely different scenes and emotions. To this end, I decided to use Terragen, a photorealistic scenery rendering software, that has been used in films like Ender's Game and Tron, to come up with a suitable image to visualize this song with.