Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Inspirations

I've been pretty sick the past week and a half so I haven't been able to do much work.  I'm finally feeling better and back to work though.   There isn't much in the way of progress to report (although the final character models are nearly complete) but I've been meaning to write a post about what inspired us to make a short film.  So here it is.

For me the it started a few years ago when I attended Siggraph for the first time in L.A.  Seeing all of the great shorts at the Computer Animation Festival really got me excited about making my own.  The ones that really stood out for me were Oktopodi, Chump & Clump, Our Wonderful Nature, and My Little Angel. Check them out if you haven't seen them.  What I really enjoyed about those was the cartoony style they were done in (except for Nature, that one is just plain funny).  That look is obviously the direction we are going with our film as well.  But as excited as I was, it obviously didn't translate into actually doing a film back then.  I had several ideas for stories but they all felt too ambitious and I knew I couldn't do them justice on my own.

Fast forward 3 years to my next visit to Siggraph in Vancouver.  That trip again fueled my desire to make a film of my own. Notable inspirations there were Meet Buck, and Paths of Hate.  I loved the different texturing looks they both employed.  During the conference I also took great classes in storytelling with color, and cinematography.  I made it a point to remember the lessons I learned there so I could employ them in whatever film I would make.

It took a few months to finally get down to it, but here we are now making this film.   Obviously an important driving force behind doing this is to get steady jobs.  I hope to exhibit not only my animation skills, but my overall talent as a storyteller and creative thinker. 

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