005 . Desert Reference

So PIXAR's Cars came out last weekend and the rendering was amazing! Very impressive stuff, especially the southwest desert. My eye focused on that a lot since we are currently working on our north African desert environment for The Duelists.

When we started this short one of my mantras was that this film is sort of like, Aardman meets Corpse Bride. We're looking for a photoreal type of look, but everything should feel like a hybrid of table top models and stop motion characters. So our desert should also feel designed but also be rooted and referenced in reality. So I started location hunting on where I wanted to shoot this movie. In the end I went back to one of (if not) the greatest desert films ever made... Lawrence of Arabia.

Here, shortly after Lawrence returns from crossing the Nafu I found our location. Here are a few screen gabs of that area where Ali waits for Lawrence to return. We are using these for general inspiration of the enviro, however Greg is/will be doing a lot to enhance it and give it a super designed feel.

Until next time troops... Christopher

P.S. Notice the awesome mix of long and short lens work to accentuate the vastness of the desert, while bringing the audience in to almost become part of the tribe. Go David Lean!

004 . Previs...

Christopher here... I haven't posted an update in a little while so I thought I would take a sec and talk about where we are at the moment.

Now that we have an edit, I'm going through and roughing out certain tricky sequences in a blocky / simple style called previs. I know most people coming here know what previs is, but for my family and other friends, previs is simply a bare bones version of each shot in 3D. There is no real animation. Just frozen characters sliding around on a simple background. Creating previs shots allows me to see how long an action might take or maybe invent a better camera angle before the real animation is completed. So far it has greatly improved the pacing and the storytelling showing me where the holes are in the composition and giving me the tools to patch it all up.

Here's a few examples of some previs frames from the Duelists...

And here are a few frames of primary animation...





























(Sorry I pixelated out what Biggs is holding but I'm not ready to show that yet)

Previs has been a great tool to help me tighten up sequences and realize where the pacing was off before I dedicated too much time to animating. So far we have a minute and a half animated out of seven minutes total, and there's still so much to do! But it will all be worth it. I'm pretty excited about what I've seen so far and each week it only gets better and better.

Wish us luck as we continue on.

At ease soldiers!

-Christopher