To illustrate how our production has been, we have put together a short film with selected parts of each step.
The Making Of Interview
The Film!
It is now 2014 and we can finally share what we have been working on for so many months. It has been a long and hard process to get the film done but now that it is, we only remember the good times.
Reference for a fall
One of our scenes involves the character running, being shocked by something that roars and then falling to the ground.
To ensure the best possible quality of that scene, we shot several takes of live action footage. Mads Bjerregaard takes on the role of our main character and as always he does an outstanding job.
Below you can watch a compilation of all the different falls that Mads performed.
Animation workflow
It has been a while since we uploaded anything to the blog and we are really sorry about that but we have been extremely busy.
We have put together a litte compilation of some of our finished animation scenes with the live action reference running next to it to give you a litte look at our production.
Enjoy
New surroundings
At the moment we are exploring different possibilities for the environment. Last week we came to the conclusion that the environment we had wasn't supporting the story and didn't give enough visual elements to play around with in staging, framing and setting the mood. Something needed to happen. Therefore Esben and Frederik began working on concepts for the new environment and are now in the process of searching, exploring, finding references, drawing, painting and brainstorming. All in all this new direction of location is going to be interesting and will in the end create a more interesting film :)
For now you can look at some of the key references...
Animation Style Reference
So now that you've seen our animation jam (if you haven't it's just below this post) it is time to get serious again :) This video is a compilation of references we have in mind for the animation style. It is a first pass on the style reference and we are still exploring and searching for our specific style. As the story and film evolves the style is being refined. Overall the style is going to be semi-realistic ranging from subtle to a more snappy/pose-to-pose. Also, the characters have different ways of acting and their contrast in character will be supported by a contrast in animation. E.g. the interviewers are very straight-to-the-point in their personality and this will be shown in the animation through very controlled movements.
That's enough rambling for now, please enjoy our first pass on the animation style reference :)
Animation Jam
So it has been a little while since we uploaded anything to the blog. But that will change now... So let's start with our little animation jam. The last work-day of 2012 we decided to have some fun and fun for us means animating as much as you can in an hour. It was a very funny hour where everybody had a chance to go crazy with the characters and rigs. Frederik made a compilation of all the beautiful animations that came out of it. People who animated were: Camilla, Frederik, Kasper, Mads, Unnur and Mikkel O.
Camilla created a wonderfully edited piece displaying the jury's excitement of the candidate who is about to enter. Frederik went all out with his surreal piece and showed that he truly is an artist. Kasper showed the world his abilities as an animator displaying skills in both walk and wave cycles. Both Mads and Unnur brought new aspects of our characters to the table and as Kasper showed how we can use the table in an alternative way. And last but not least, I demonstrated our characters abilities to walk through walls and also the greatest piece of animation acting I've ever seen.
Color & Lightscript
New design, concepts and looktests
Interview Featured in Politiken
Exciting news! Interview is featured on the front page of both sections in today's edition of Politiken. The images to the left (frontpage) is made by Esben Rasmussen and the ones to the right is storyboards from the old story and are made by Mads Bjerregaard.
We'll be back soon with new artwork and updates :)
/Mikkel
Room Concepts
Right now the new story is getting in shape and I can say that it makes a lot more sense than the old one. Because of the story being changed so radically, the designs and concepts need to be rethinked.
I asked Esben to come up with some visual suggestions for the room that supported where the story is going and at the same time how we could explore different lighting scenarios. Here are some of the ideas he came up with.
Enjoy, and stay tuned for more updates in the near future :)
/Mikkel
Status update
Hi everybody reading :)
The project is going through a lot of changes at the moment and therefore it will be a little while before new artwork is posted on the blog.
Last week we had Luis Cook here as a consultant and his suggestions were so comprehensive that we have decided to take a "fresh-start" on the story.
So for the next couple of weeks we are working primarily on the story, animatic and setting up the digital layout. But hopefully we will post more stuff in the near future.
Meanwhile you can enjoy this foto of Adrian, Kasper, Esben and Mikkel dressed up as The Avengers.