Inside Film

Inside Film http://if.com.au/ Inside Film - Australia en-us http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss info@if.com.au (The Editor) Animal Logic brings Coca-Cola's polar bears to life http://if.com.au/2012/04/26/article/Animal-Logic-brings-Coca-Colas-polar-bears-to-life/UUTOMDRLGE.html http://if.com.au/2012/04/26/article/Animal-Logic-brings-Coca-Colas-polar-bears-to-life/UUTOMDRLGE.html Sam Dallas This article also appears in the current issue of IF (#146, April-May 2012). The print article incorrectly reported that Framestore was responsible for the for the animation and shading of the polar bears, when the work was actually completed by Animal Logic. The error has been corrected. An audience of more than 111 million American football fanatics is enough to inspire great VFX work. For director David Scott and his team at Australian VFX house Animal Logic that work involved creating realistic CGI polar bears in three Coca-Cola spots (Catch, Superstition and Arghh) that aired at this year’s Superbowl. “I think the difference between these spots to how the polar bears had been seen before was that in a lot of the older commercials, it was sort of centred around family, so you’d have a polar bear family doing what they do – whereas this was quite specifically targeting people at home watching the Superbowl,” New Zealand-born Scott says. “So it meant they had to be very relatable and approachable and because of the live nature of it as wellˆ they’re just like us watching the game – that dictated a large part of how the bears would be designed.” Their look was important – the team wanted the big bears to also have large upper bodies to mimic the US footballers. But they also had to be cuddly and not vicious. “If you go to the zoo or you look at BBC footage, they’re actually pretty shaggy and pretty dirty so the trick was to really find a balance that meets people’s expectations of what a polar bear is versus a real polar bear,” Scott explains. “So we spent a lot of time basically making the fur ultra shiny and very huggable and cute you know – that was a very big consideration.” Fur systems built upon from previous Animal Logic feature films – such as Happy Feet and Sucker Punch – assisted the team. Initially, the three scripts were about the bears sitting on the couch watching the NFL’s big game. The Animal Logic team submitted a treatment which covered the design process – basically the look and the style of not only the bears but the environments. As part of that treatment, Scott suggested covering the commercials much like how the Superbowl was actually shot – swoop in over the action, shoot from the sidelines and employ ultra-slow motion shots. “Before we got too far into storyboarding, we just thought ‘it’s really all about the bears, it’s about the character’ – the bears are not really realistic but they have to be charming and endearing and carry all these qualities of being relatable, so we put the focus number one on designing the bear,” Scott says. “Then we did a few keyframes of the environment – because it was also very important to Coke and [advertising agency] Wieden that we had to make the environments sort of epic and very magical as well." The storyboarding process then began and the team put together animatics for all three spots. “That’s really great to help you work out the basic timing, the basic choreography, and all that sort of stuff – temp music, temp sound,” Scott says. Because of the very specific timing of the gags, the team spent longer on storyboards for the Superstition clip. But for the minute-long Catch spot – clearly the most complicated of the three – pre-vis was entered into early to see how the timing worked and for camera placement and movement. Animal Logic completed the animation and shading of the bears employing shaders originally developed for Happy Feet, which have since been refined. “The ice and snow shaders are just a really good level of control for the texture artists so they can compose cracks and air bubbles and stuff like that throughout the depth of the ice,” CG supervisor Feargal Stewart says. “And these are just things they can do with texture maps and then the shader takes care of the depth and the subsurface and all those beautiful shading qualities.” Scott adds: “There was some amazing shading work done on the start of it – just the way that the eyes reflect the light and the sparkles on the eyes. One thing that was very key in terms of the shading and effects work especially was just how these bears actually slip and slide on the ice, because the story point of Catch is it’s sort of accidental football – the bears don’t set out to play a football game, but it happens because one of the bears tried to catch the bottle and he accidentally slips and slides. “We went through quite a few reiterations on that because the ice was too deep – it kind of looked like watery sludge. And if it was too thin it didn’t really have an impact so it was a lot of great development happened there.” Stewart says the biggest challenge for the team – which was based in LA for the final stages because of the intensive review process – was the scarves. “The scarf had a basic animation rig which meant that it moved around with the bear properly and then on top of that the animators could then control and offset and make the scarf flop over the shoulder or flop down or wherever it needed to go to look good for the shot.” Because the Superbowl spots needed to reference the game itself between the New York Giants and the New England Patriots, the pipeline had to accommodate last-minute additions. “We set up a pipeline there which was based on colour grading scarves and coming up with the process, and the months leading up to that we would actually produce a way to be able to change the colour but do it completely in post after everything had been rendered,” Scott says. Thu, 26 Apr 2012 17:08:55 +1000 An interview with Disney legend Floyd Norman http://if.com.au/2012/04/04/article/An-interview-with-Disney-legend-Floyd-Norman/MQUQMEUEMB.html http://if.com.au/2012/04/04/article/An-interview-with-Disney-legend-Floyd-Norman/MQUQMEUEMB.html Sam Dallas Disney legend Floyd Norman, who worked alongside Walt Disney, visited Sydney in late-2010 and caught up with IF Magazine for a chat about the world of animation.This article first appeared in IF #135, September 2010. While Walt Disney was a traditionalist, he would have embraced the technology if he was alive today, Disney animation legend Floyd Norman says. “He would just have been so full of ideas and who knows what things he would want to try next,” Norman tells IF Magazine. Norman, now in his late-70s, says Walt would’ve been just like him – embracing the technology rather than dismissing it. “Walt was enamoured with technology but looking back on it, it was really primitive in those days – it was really just basically analog technology and now with digital, it’s just expanded. Once you accept this technology, then instead of it being something that you feel is going to encroach on your artistic sensibility you realise, ‘no, this is only going to enhance what I do and it’s actually going to open up more artistic opportunities’.” It’s been an amazing life for Norman – the first African-American to work at the company that created such characters as Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck. Growing up in Santa Barbara, California, he was constantly drawing as a child and loved both Disney and Warner Bros cartoons. “I loved the idea of moving drawings,” the well-spoken and passionate Norman says. “When my mother and I went to the cinema we saw these drawings up on the screen – I knew they weren’t real but I didn’t know what they were. I thought ‘well if they’re not real, they’re pictures – they’re moving pictures – but how do you make a picture move?’ and that became the question that stayed on my mind. So as I grew older I finally found the secret – I found out how they made the pictures move and that was by drawing lots of them, thousands of them.” It was always likely that he would grow up working for an animation company – and he still is after more than 50 years. Approaching Disney when he was 17 but discovering he was a bit young, Norman attended the Art Centre College of Design before being hired by Walt two years later. “It was a childhood dream come true. It was truly a wonderland,” Norman says of first seeing the massive empire. “There were very few books about Disney in those days – hardly a thing, but whatever there was I dug upˆ So I did learn as much as possible. And I got to know the names of the well-known Disney artists and what they did and how they worked so when I finally arrived at the studio I was very well versed in who was there and what they did. It was like going into a place and meeting all of your heroes for the first time; I was totally blown away by that.” But like everyone, Norman had to pay his dues. “You have to work from the bottom up; even those who wanted to move onto other departments like layout or background, they all began as in-betweeners,” he says. Norman started work on Sleeping Beauty before graduating to the story department where he worked on The Jungle Book. He also did several comics, children’s books and story board work on shows and features including The Flintstones, Scooby Doo, The Hunchback of Notre Dame and The Tigger Movie. What sort of a man was the legendary Walt Disney? “He was a man who liked to control things, he was very much in charge, very much hands-on,” Norman begins. “He knew everything that was going on in his studio. The old-timers tell me that he would wander the hallways at night and look at what was on the artists’ desks at night so he knew what everybody was doing at all times – nothing escaped his eye. “Some people called Walt Disney a workaholic, that he was obsessed with his studio but I wouldn’t call him obsessive – he loved what he did and he wanted it to be the best. And he felt that if he didn’t keep an eye on things then it could slip. He was obsessive about quality; very passionate.” Even when in hospital towards the end, Norman explains, Walt was using the ceiling as a virtual map planning exactly where everything would be at Walt Disney World, including the animal park and rides. So it obviously came as a massive blow when the legend passed away in 1966 – exactly 10 years after Norman joined the empire. “We were in total disbelief, total shock,” Norman says of Walt’s passing after he lost his battle with lung cancer. “Walt never showed any signs of his illness and even though he was going into the hospital for surgery late in the year 1966, he was still working with us on The Jungle Book with the same kind of drive and energy as a man half his age. He was just a dynamic individual and so focused on what he was doing – not only what he was doing in the present but what he intended to do in the future. That first 10 years after his passing was extremely difficult because we kind of flounded about for 10 years trying to find our footing.” Disney’s world again changed four decades later when the Walt Disney Company bought Pixar for more than $US7 billion. “Pixar really had a tremendous impact on animation,” Norman says who worked on Toy Story 2 and Monsters, Inc. “When they completed Toy Story in 1995, I don’t think anybody realised what that film was going to do – I think it surprised Pixar really.” Norman still visits the Pixar crew to offer advice and help out any which way he can. He of course loves how animation has taken off today because “it gives more kids an opportunity to work”. “The job market has expanded tremendously so now there are more opportunities than ever,” Norman says, who met his second wife Adrienne – a Disney children’s book illustrator – at work. “In the old days all you could hope for was maybe a job at Disney, or maybe a job at Warner Bros, but now a young student coming out of art school or animation school or whatever, they have dozens of studios to choose from.” Today, Norman admits, he “more often than not” draws on computer (mainly using Adobe Photoshop), as opposed to free-hand. He has retired from full-time production but still works with the employees at Disney as a consultant and he doesn’t plan on ever leaving. “So should they wander too far astray I’m there to remind them that’s not what Walt Disney would’ve wanted and get it back on track.” In 2007 Norman, who recently penned his autobiography My Animated Life, was awarded the prestigious title of “Disney Legend”, for his outstanding contribution to the company. “I really didn’t see myself worthy,” the modest Norman says. “I still don’t believe it.” Norman’s favourite project he worked on was Sleeping Beauty, his first feature film. “That was a real privilege to work on that film because that really was an end of an era,” Norman says of the movie which took about six years to make. “Walt Disney threw everything he could onto that film because he wanted it to be a Disney masterpiece. And in doing so, with 600 artists over a period of five to six years it just cost so much money; we knew that we could never do that again.” Sleeping Beauty, along with 101 Dalmatians and 102 Dalmatians, has now been put back into the “Disney Vault” for seven years. When they are released from the vault, they are available for 18 months. <img alt="" height="299" src="/image/Floyd Norman.jpg" width="450" /> Floyd Norman pictured in 1957. Wed, 04 Apr 2012 10:48:57 +1000 Cutting Edge appoints new Head of Strategic Development http://if.com.au/2012/03/26/article/Cutting-Edge-appoints-new-Head-of-Strategic-Development/LTZXJTKSHU.html http://if.com.au/2012/03/26/article/Cutting-Edge-appoints-new-Head-of-Strategic-Development/LTZXJTKSHU.html Amanda Diaz Post-production house Cutting Edge has appointed Allan Bruty as its new head of strategic development and innovation. Bruty will be responsible for creating opportunities for Cutting Edge's media, entertainment and production clients across multiple digital distribution platforms. In a statement, Bruty, a past nominee for SPAA's Independent Producer of the Year award, said he was excited to join the post-production house: “We’re in a unique position to provide clients with fully integrated, multiscreen enabled content provided by highly skilled in-house creative and quality production resources," he said. Bruty has previously worked for Redbox Digital and Adstream. He will be based at the Cutting Edge's Sydney office in Chippendale, but will focus on growing Cutting Edge's profile throughout the Asia Pacific region. The company recently opened a brand new, purpose built premises in Brisbane, with the Sydney branch set to undergo a complete refit in the coming months. Œ Mon, 26 Mar 2012 14:52:48 +1100 Aardman returns with all new animation in The Pirates! Band of Misfits http://if.com.au/2012/03/14/article/Aardman-returns-with-all-new-animation-in-The-Pirates-Band-of-Misfits/WGVRKXJGCB.html http://if.com.au/2012/03/14/article/Aardman-returns-with-all-new-animation-in-The-Pirates-Band-of-Misfits/WGVRKXJGCB.html Danii Logue CGI-heavy animated films may be more familiar to today's audiences but stop-motion is very much alive and kicking, according to Aardman Animation’s Daz Burgess – one of the animators on up-coming feature The Pirates! Band of Misfits. “As long as there are companies like Aardman, there will still be stop-motion films,” Burgess said, adding that respected directors such as Tim Burton (The Corpse Bride) and Henry Sellick (Coraline) continue to favour the medium. Based on a series of novels by Gideon Defoe, The Pirates! Band of Misfits tells the story of the Pirate Captain (voiced by Hugh Grant) and his attempts to win the Pirate of the Year Award as he deals with a maniacal Queen (Imelda Staunton) and a love-struck Charles Darwin (David Tennant). It’s been seven years since Aardman Animation’s last stop-motion feature – Wallace and Gromit in the Curse of the Were-Rabbit, on which Burgess also worked – and much has changed. Instead of the traditional plasticine figures, The Pirates! Band of Misfits relied on rubber puppets, a decision which Burgess claims not only enabled the animators to have more freedom on what was an action-heavy film but also minimised the clean up time required. “It was almost like Aardman had leapt forward again with their standard of animation. There was a lot more weight and a lot more energy in the puppets that we weren’t able to produce with characters like Wallace and Gromit.” Having worked with Aardman previously on the second Wallace and Gromit film and the first series of Creature Comforts, Burgess jumped at the opportunity to return to Bristol and work on the feature. “For me, as an animator, it’s my Hollywood. It’s the equivalent of going to LA and working on a big budget feature film with amazing stars. They’re just such a great company and I feel spoilt every time I’m there.” The Pirates! Band of Misfits will be released in 3D on April 5. Wed, 14 Mar 2012 10:58:23 +1100