The Sea Venture

Client – Look Bermuda & Heuristic Media

CGI Model – Grant Cox (Materials/Lighting/Rendering/Animation).

Software – 3DS Max/Vray/After Effects

Research – Specialist advice from Professor Jon Adams

The Sea Venture was the largest of a ‘third supply’ fleet bound for Jamestown in the summer of 1609 following the Susan Constant, Godspeed and Discovery. It’s voyage was hoped to be uneventful, but instead turned into a story that has to this day resonated to the people of Bermuda and is thought to have influenced many others across the world. Although unclear in its exact placement of the story, it is widely regarded that Shakespeare’s The Tempest is influenced heavily by the events that transpired to the crew of the Sea Venture as news soon began to filter through to England about the ships fate.

In 2013, work we began work on modelling a reconstruction of the Sea Venture based on research from Professor Jon Adams at the University of Southampton. Working closely with Jon & using cross references & knowledge from other ships from the period (Susan Constant) a model was created and then animated into a short clip for the documentary “Downing’s Wreck: The Story of the Sea Venture”.

In 2016, our model was then directly used for the pilot Heuristic Shakespeare app The Tempest (In the essays section & notes on the side of act 1 scene 1), which launched for the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death. For a short clip of it in action in the app, watch the promotional video embedded on the right hand side of this page, or click here.

For more information about the Sea Venture, please take a look at our project breakdown page.