Animation Magazine Special Siggraph Issue #322 by Animation Magazine, Inc.

next page T H E

B U S I N E S S ,

T E C H N O L O G Y

A R T

O F

A N I M AT I O N

TOC

A N D

August 2022

™ S i g g r a p h

VISIT AWS at SIGGRAPH, Booth #602 next page

V F X

E d i t i o n

Amazon Nimble Studio Empowers Picchu’s Incredible Journey TOC

TOC

CELEBRATING

www.animationmagazine.net 2

TOC

august 22

TOC

Volume 36, Issue 7, Number 322 Frame-By-Frame

Siggraph Spotlight

28 The Visual Pulse of the Machine SIGGRAPH’s Electronic Theater keeps an eye on the latest global VFX and CG animation achievements. By Ellen Wolff

Animation Planner August

Features 6 A Fortunate Girl Director Peggy Holmes and animation director Yuriko Senoo give us an insider tour of the world of Skydance Animation’s Luck. By Ramin Zahed 10 Super Pooches to the Rescue! How writer/director Jared Stern and his team brought the canine heroes of DC League of SuperPets to animated life. By Tom McLean 14 One Shell of a Good Time Ant Ward and Andy Suriano give us the scoop on their awesome new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie. 16 Hypnotic History Masaaki Yuasa’s Inu-Oh brings a rock opera sensibility to a 14th century tale of music, friendship and betrayal. By Charles Solomon

30 SIGGRAPH: Spotlight on the 2022 Prize Winners Meet the brilliant student directors behind The Seine’s Tears, The End of War and Yallah! 34 A Rewarding Journey The animated short Picchu highlights the beauty and educational challenges of Ecuador.

36 How to Take Rejection Like a Pro! Remember, a “No” doesn’t mean no forever! By Tom Sito

VFX

TV/Streaming 18 The Magic of Loved Toys Creator Shannon Tindle and director Peter Ramsey mix live action with CG animation with great impact in Lost Ollie. By Ramin Zahed

42 It’s Hammer Time, Again! VFX supervisor Jake Morrison takes us behind the scenes of the wild visuals of this summer’s Marvel extravaganza Thor: Love and Thunder. By Trevor Hogg

22 A Family Affair Dan Povenmire’s new Disney Channel show Hamster & Gretel is inspired by his own experiences. By Ramin Zahed

44 Tech Reviews World Creator 3, RealityScan, Foundry’s Flix 6.4, HP’s Z8 and Blackmagic Design’s DaVinci Resolve 18. By Todd Sheridan Perry

26 Meet That Designing Wascally Wabbit! Everyone’s favorite Looney Tunes characters teach preschoolers about building, design and problem solving in the new show Bugs Bunny Builders. By Karen Idelson

Shorts

46 Heart Like a Wheel Sander Joon chats with us about his awardwinning new short Sierra.

Day in the Life 48 A Day in the Life of... Meet Wētā FX animation supervisor Aidan Martin!

Cover A: Skydance Animation’s first movie Luck bows on Apple TV+ this month. Cover B: Warner Bros. has high hopes for DC League of Super-Pets this summer. Siggraph Cover: How Amazon Nimble Studio made Picchu’s incredible journey possible. august 22 1

Opportunities

40 Three Decades of Thrilling Images. Sony Pictures Imageworks celebrates 30 years of cutting-edge visuals, talented visionaries and pioneering technologies.

24 Prehistoric Perfection The inimitable animation genius Genndy Tartakovksy discusses the second season of his acclaimed show, Primal.

August 2022

18 www.animationmagazine.net

TOC

F rom

the

E ditor

The Great Toons of Summer H

ow many seasons should a popular animated show be kept on the air? That might be one of the toughest existential questions of our pop-culture-saturated era. In the last few months, we were saddened to read about the cancellation of acclaimed shows such as Elizabeth Ito’s City of Ghosts (Netflix) and J.G. Quintel’s Close Enough (HBO Max). Although we know that more often than not, these cancellations have financial reasons behind them, it’s never easy to say goodbye to a beloved show that has become part of our lives. But then, there are also animated shows that seem to keep on and on, way past their expiration dates. Maybe there’s some truth to the old adage that only the good die young after all! Lucky for all of us, there are plenty of well-loved and brilliant animated shows that are currently part of this summer’s viewing options. One of them is Genndy Tartakavsky’s multaward-winning Primal, which started its second season on HBO Max and Adult Swim last month. Genndy is one of those uniquely gifted animation superstars who can glide easily between crowd-pleasing pop culture faves like the Hotel Transylvania movies and the artistic majesty of Samurai Jack and Primal. He’s also one of our favorite interview subjects, because he’s always insightful, down-to-earth and fascinating. Not to mention one of the nicest guys working in our business today. Speaking of amazing talents, let’s hear it for the winning combination of animation veteran Shannon Tindle (Kubo and the Two Strings) and director Peter Ramsey (Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse). The dynamic duo were kind enough to chat with us about their beautifully crafted new Netflix mini-series Lost Ollie, which features some charming CG animated toys as well as a powerful storyline and top-notch acting. It’s great to see two of our favorites, Tindle and Ramsey, collaborating on such a unique project: It’s like when two very cool superheroes join forces for a one-of-a-kind mission. On the features front, the new DC League of Super-Pets is one of our cover stories this month. Animag regular contributor Tom McLean was our go-to man to get the scoop on this new venture from the team at DC and Warner Bros. The pic’s director Jared Stern was also behind Netflix’s hugely popular Green Eggs and Ham series and penned a couple of the LEGO movies, so he definitely knows how to bring a popular franchise to animated life for today’s savvy audiences. This is the month when we also get to enjoy Skydance Animation’s first animated movie, Luck, which premieres on Apple+ in early August. The film’s gifted director Peggy Holmes was kind enough to chat with us about this exciting venture, which brought together animation talent from the Skydance hubs in Los Angeles and Madrid. We have a feeling this is just the beginning of a string of great-looking and entertaining new CG-animated fare for the whole family. If you are picking this issue at SIGGRAPH in Vancouver, we hope you have a productive and educational experience. Make sure you read Ellen Wolff’s excellent interview with Darin Grant, who headed the Electronic Theater in 2022. Enjoy all the cool innovations on display and please drop us an email to let us know what you thought were the most groundbreaking projects, tools and companies at the confab this year.

Quote of the Month “So excited to partner with an incredible studio to develop new characters and stories for two of my favorite creations.”

Ramin Zahed Editor in Chief ramin@animationmagazine.net

ANIMATION MAGAZINE August 2022

Vol. 36, Issue 7, No. 322, Info@animationmagazine.net

President and Publisher: Jean Thoren Accounting: Jan Bayouth EDITORIAL

edit@animationmagazine.net

Editor in Chief: Ramin Zahed Multimedia Editor: Mercedes Milligan Webmaster: Damaso Abrajan Asst. Webmaster: Lucy Abrajan Tech Reviews Editor: Todd Sheridan Perry Contributors: Trevor Hogg, Karen Idelson, Tom McLean, Tom Sito, Charles Solomon, Ellen Wolff ADVERTISING SALES sales@animationmagazine.net

Sheri Shelton EVENTS Director: Kim Derevlany kim@animationmagazine.net

CREATIVE

prod@animationmagazine.net

Creative Director/Production Manager: Susanne Rector CIRCULATION

circ@animationmagazine.net

Circulation Director: Jan Bayouth TO ADVERTISE: Phone: 818-883-2884 Fax: 818-883-3773 Email: sales@animationmagazine.net Website: www.animationmagazine.net List Rental Quantum List Marketing (480) 860-6036 ANIMATION MAGAZINE (USPS 015-877/ISSN 1041-617X) Published monthly except for combined issues of June/July September/October, by Animation Magazine 24943 Kit Carson Road Calabasas, CA 91302 Periodicals postage paid at Woodland Hills Post Office CA, And additional mailing offices. POSTMASTER: SEND ADDRESS CHANGES TO MAILING ADDRESS: ANIMATION MAGAZINE 26500 W. Agoura Rd. Ste. 102-651 Calabasas, CA 91302 TO SUBSCRIBE:

For the U.S., the rate is $60 for 1 year or $95 for 2 years. Rates for Canada and Mexico are US$75 for 1 year or US$120 for 2 years delivered by foreign airmail. Foreign rates are US$90 for 1 year or US$145 for 2 years delivered by foreign airmail. Please allow six to eight weeks for initial delivery. Also available in a digital version for $36 for 1 year or $60 for 2 years.

Prior written approval must be obtained to duplicate any and all contents. The copyrights and trademarks of images featured herein are the property of their respective owners. Animation Magazine acknowledges the creators and copyright holders of the materials mentioned herein, and does not seek to infringe on those rights.

— Craig McCracken on the new reboots of The Powerpuff Girls and Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends at Hanna-Barbera Studios Europe. www.animationmagazine.net 2

TOC

august 22

TOC

EMMY AWARD NOMINATIONS INCLUDING

OUTSTANDING ANIMATED PROGRAM

FYC.NETFLIX.COM

TOC

Frame-By-Frame

Animation Planner

August

Now that they’ve done the universe, Mike Judges’ beloved layabouts return for their new series in the rebooted Beavis and Butt-head on Paramount+. Huh-huh… cool. Beavis and Butt-head Meanwhile on Netflix, check out Mark Andrews’ real-time animated action-comedy Super Giant Robot Brothers! from Reel FX and the new MAPPA shounen anime Kakegurui Twin.

The unluckiest girl in the world stumbles upon a magical land of kismet and fate in Skydance Animation’s Apple Original Film Luck, out today. Luck

The heroes on a half shell are back for the 2D comedy adventure Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Movie, on Netflix. If you’re in the L.A. area, don’t miss the three-day Masaaki Yuasa retrospective at American Cinematheque.

SIGGRAPH kicks off in Vancouver, featuring the event’s first ever hybrid Electronic Theater offering. [s2022.siggraph.org] The new Will Vinton documentary Clay Dreams opens in his hometown of Portland, Ore. ahead of its nationwide rollout.

Marvel’s new animated shorts series I Am Groot drops five episodes starring Vin Diesel and directed by Kristen Lepore on Disney+ today.

Gohan and Piccolo face the return of the Red Ribbon Army in Dragon Ball Super: SUPER HERO, presented by Crunchyroll in 2,300 theaters across the U.S. and Canada plus select IMAX screens.

Masaaki Yuasa’s highly anticipated, historical rock opera Inu-Oh is ready to serenade fans in U.S. theaters thanks to GKIDS. On TV screens, Inu-Oh Dan Povenmire’s new toon Hamster & Gretel swoops in to save the day on Disney Channel. Brooklyn hosts the can’t-miss indie fest Animation Block Party this weekend. [animationblock.com]

L.A.’s Secret Movie Club presents the first public screening of the documentary Mike Mignola: Drawing Monsters at the iconic Million Dollar Theater, with the Hellboy creator live on stage.

The inaugural Hiroshima Animation Season brings five days of film screenings, educational tracks and special celebrations to the Japanese port. [animation.hiroshimafest.org]

Lost Ollie

Don’t miss Shannon Tindle and Peter Ramsey’s hybrid William Joyce event series adaptation Lost Ollie, exclusively on Netflix.

Little Demon

Aubrey Plaza, Danny DeVito and his daughter Lucy DeVito star in FXX’s adult comedy Little Demon, premiering the night after Archer’s S13 debut.

Animaze in Montreal caps the month’s nonstop animation festival rush, which also includes Turku Animated Film Festival (Finland, Aug. 24-28), Cape Town Int’l Animation Festival (South Africa, Aug. 24-26) and Animist Tallinn (Estonia, Aug. 17-20), to name a few. [aminazefestival.com | taff.fi | ctiaf.com | animistfestival.eu]

To get your company’s events and products listed in this monthly calendar, please e-mail edit@animationmagazine.net. www.animationmagazine.net 4

TOC

august 22

TOC

Frame-By-Frame

E M M Y® A W A R D

N O M I N A T I O N S INCLUDING

OU T S TA NDING SHOR T FOR M A NIM AT ED PROGR A M

“EXQUISITE.” INDIEWIRE

“A WORK OF ART. HEART-POUNDING.” SLASH FILM

“A SPECTACULARLY ANIMATED MASTERPIECE. JIBARO HAS JAW-DROPPING VISUALS AND AN INCREDIBLE LEVEL OF DETAIL.” CBR

FYC.NETFLIX.COM august 22

www.animationmagazine.net

TOC

Features

Peggy Holmes

Director Peggy Holmes and animation director Yuriko Senoo give us an insider tour of the world of Skydance Animation’s Luck. By Ramin Zahed

f you ever believed that our world is ruled by little forces of good and bad fortune, then Skydance Animation’s first feature Luck is the perfect pic for you. The clever and imaginative movie centers on a young girl named Sam Greenfield, who considers herself the unluckiest person in the world. When she accidentally stumbles into the never-before-seen Land of Luck, she sets out on a quest to bring some good luck home for her best friend. Of course, she has to team up with the magical creatures of this world to make her wishes come true. The film is directed by Peggy Holmes, a Disney veteran who also helmed two Tinker Bell spinoff movies (The Pirate Fairy, Secret of the Wings) as well as The Little Mermaid: Ariel’s Beginning. “I was very excited to work on a completely original property at a brand-new studio,” she tells Animation Magazine during a recent Zoom interview. “I’ve been working on this movie for about two and a half years,” she noted. “I was developing a TV series at Skydance when they asked me to come and lead the movie.”

She adds, “There were two things that were part of the project that really appealed to me: this idea of Sam having grown up in the foster care system and that a leprechaun was involved. I come from a really big family and belonging to the family is the most meaningful thing in my life, and I could see that creating a story around Sam who has this emotional journey of finding her own family. And the leprechaun! I’m partly Irish and thought I could really blow it up and develop this leprechaun character into a full magical world called the Land of Luck. So, I told them if I could create this deep, heartfelt journey in a super magical world, I’m in. And they said, ‘Let’s go!’”

Holmes says she looks back fondly at her time at Disney. “I loved my time at Disney. I was an actress, dancer, choreographer and director,” she recalls “Over at Skydance, we are a brandnew studio. We get to help build the studio from the ground up. Every day, we are learning something new and everyday it’s super challenging. It was exciting to be working with producers John

Lasseter, David Ellison, Dana Goldberg, David Eisenmann and [Skydance Animation president] Holly Edwards and be part of building something from the beginning.” The film has had a complicated development history. It was first set up with DreamWorks veteran Alessandro Carloni (Kung Fu Panda 3), with a script by Jonathan Aibel & Glenn Berger. Then, when John Lasseter joined the studio as CCO after leaving Disney-Pixar, he tapped Holmes to take over the project, and writer Kiel Murray (Cars 3, Raya and the Last Dragon) was also brought on board. Actress Emma Thompson was also attached to the project, but she quit the movie in early 2019 to protest Lasseter’s new position at the studio. Having worked with Lasseter on the Tinker Bell movies, Holmes was pleased to be working with the former Pixar and Disney CCO once again. “John is a great mentor, ultra-creative artist and he’s a master storyteller,” she says. “He always has these great ideas and is there when you need him. He’s a partner in the best way: He’ll say come to me with your story problems and I’ll help solve them for

www.animationmagazine.net 6

TOC

august 22

TOC

Features Outrageous Fortune: Oscarwinning actress Jane Fonda lends her voice to Babe the Dragon, one of the many fascinating and unusual residents of the world of Skydance’s Luck.

“I’m partly Irish and thought I could really develop this leprechaun character into a full magical world called the Land of Luck. So, I told them if I could create this deep, heartfelt journey in a super magical world, I’m in!” — Director Peggy Holmes

you. He’s been very supportive.” The director mentioned that one of the big challenges of mounting the movie was coming up with a storyline that wasn’t forced and didn’t hit the audiences with its positive message of building your own luck. “Our writer Kiel Murray and I did a lot of research for the project and we met with these incredible young adults who had also grown up in foster care and had the same experiences at Sam,” recalls Holmes. “When we spoke to these people, no matter how much bad luck they had had in their lives, they were so positive and kept going,” she

adds. “They were so generous at heart and Kiel and I were so moved by their stories. They told us that they didn’t wish bad luck on anyone else and they wouldn’t want to live it again, but looking back, it made them who we were. That’s what Sam needed to learn. We want her to look back at her life and say, ‘What I thought was the worst luck ever, turned out to be the best luck because I finally found my family!’” Holmes worked with the Skydance artists located in three different locations: Los Angeles, Madrid and Connecticut. “We have CG animators, layout and VFX artists and lighters in Connecticut. We were lucky enough to grab

the artists that were available after Blue Sky’s closure in the region.” The director says the overall look of Luck owes a lot to the film’s talented production designer Fred Warter, whose many credits include A Goofy Movie, 9 and Secret of the Wings. “The first artwork he did for the movie depicted two worlds on either side of a coin — good luck on top and bad on the bottom,” she recalls. “It was a wonderful globe-like creation and I said, ‘OK, now we have to build the world based on that — a world where everything is timed perfectly, and our artists were fed with these cool concepts.” “Creating these two fantastical worlds provided us with many challenges,” says animation director Yuriko Senoo, who was also animation supervisor on Skydance’s acclaimed 2021 short Blush, and worked on features such as The Star, The Pirate Fairy, Tangled and Bolt. “In the ‘Good Luck’ world, everything happens perfectly and the transportation comes to you. You step on a disc and it carries you to your destination, so the timing has to be absolutely perfect and easygoing. In the ‘Bad Luck’ world, everything goes wrong. The buildings are in constant need of repair, etc. But it was important that all the Bad Luck characters were not portrayed as scary monsters. They love their jobs, too. We wanted to show that you need both bad luck and good fortune to keep the world in balance.” Senoo says she and her team were inspired by the great classic comedians of TV and movies’

august 22 7

www.animationmagazine.net

TOC

Features

golden age. “We looked at the work of stars such as Lucille Ball, Carol Burnett, Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton and Donald O’Connor because they were such great physical comedians and could make us laugh without saying a word — simply by using their bodies and faces,” she explains. “We were really drawn to those simple poses and expressions. We wanted to keep Sam in a more real and natural animated world, where less would be more. I also looked at my own daughter for inspiration, since she was transitioning from high school to college, just like our movie’s heroine was going through some big changes.”

The animation team was also fortunate to have an amazing roster of actors lending their voices to the films’ characters: Eva Noblezada as Sam, Jane Fonda as The Dragon, Whoopi Goldberg as The Captain, Simon Pegg as Bob, Flula Borg as Jeff the Unicorn and Lil Rel Howery as Marv, to name a few. As Senoo points out, having stars like Fonda, Goldberg and Pegg helped them get a solid grasp of the character’s traits. “The live-action footage helped us enormously,” recalls Senoo. “We also looked at some classic dragon animation references. Our Dragon has six legs and no wings, and she’s a powerful but caring boss, so she can relate to the leprechauns, the pigs and the bunnies. There was a challenge to keep in mind the size differences between her and all the other characters, too.” When asked to pick her favorite sequence in the movie, Senoo says it’s very difficult to point to one scene because she’s very proud of all the work the team has been able to deliver. “Every scene brings up different kinds of

“We looked at the work of physical comedy stars such as Lucille Ball, Carol Burnett, Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton and Donald O’Connor because they could make us laugh without saying a word — simply by using their bodies and faces.” — Animation director Yuriko Senoo

memories and it’s been a great collaboration between our teams in Madrid, Connecticut and Los Angeles,” she says. “I do love the sequence where Sam chases after Bob to get a lucky penny, because we can see Sam’s physical comedy with bad luck vs. Bob’s physical comedy with good luck. The contrast is fun to see. We can also see good luck and bad luck contrast with Sam in her apartment and work the day before without a lucky penny, and then the next day with a lucky penny. It’s so entertaining to see them. I can watch them over and over and enjoy every time. I also love the ending sequence — but that’s for everyone to find out what happens!” Both Senoo and Holmes say they hope audiences will ultimately have a great time

watching the movie and take to heart its subtle messages. “We worked really hard to relate the message that luck is a complex idea, and that both good and bad luck are made,” says Holmes. “We created the logic and rules of this world in a way that would be entertaining and organic. And in the end, we wanted Sam to look back at her life and realize that she thought she had the worst luck ever. But it turned out to be the best luck, because she finally found her family. Judging from the early screenings we had, the payoff has been great, because people are relating to her in a very positive way.” ◆ Skydance Animation’s Luck premieres on Apple TV+ on August 5.

www.animationmagazine.net 8

TOC

august 22

TOC

Features

august 22 9

www.animationmagazine.net

TOC

Features

Super Pooches to the Rescue! How writer/director Jared Stern and his team brought the canine heroes of DC League of Super-Pets to animated life. By Tom McLean

ared Stern was volunteering a while back in a pet shelter when he noticed older animals that were less likely to be adopted were kept in the back room. “It was sad to me, and they seemed so powerless,” says Stern, a writer/producer whose credits include Warner Bros.’ LEGO animation franchise, the movies Storks and Smallfoot and the acclaimed Netflix Green Eggs and Ham series, as well as the creator of the live-action comedy series Dr. Ken. “I don’t know why — maybe because I’d been watching a lot of superhero movies — I was just like, what if those pets got superpowers?” Thus was born a pitch that comes to fruition with the theatrical release of the animated feature DC League of Super-Pets, in which Superman’s beloved dog Krypto and a ragtag group of shelter pets with superpowers save the Justice League — and the world — from a hairless guinea pig from outer space. The movie features an all-star voice cast, with Dwayne Johnson playing Krypto, his Jumanji co-star Kevin Hart as a hound named Ace, SNL superstar Kate McKinnon as the alien Lulu, Russian Doll’s Natasha Lyonne as a super-fast turtle named Merton, Diego Luna

as the super-powered squirrel Chip and Vanessa Bayer as a pot-bellied pig who goes by PB. The movie also features John Krasinski as Superman, Keanu Reeves as Batman, Marc Maron as Lex Luthor, and Olivia Wilde as Lois Lane.

Wagging the Origins Tale The screenplay is by Stern and John Whittington. Stern also directs, with Penn Zero: Part-Time Hero creator Sam J. Levine as co-director, and the movie is animated by Animal Logic. Stern describes the movie as an origin story for the super-pets that balances both

“We wanted this origin story to have a lot of fun, but also to be a great action comic-book movie, and also to make you care, and to tell a really good emotional story.” — Writer-director Jared Stern

www.animationmagazine.net 10

TOC

august 22

TOC

Features Canine Crime-Fighters: When Superman (John Krasinski) is kidnapped, it’s up to Krypto the Super-Dog (Dwayne Johnson) to convince his friends to help save the Man of Steel.

comedy and adventure. “We wanted it to have a lot of fun, but also to be a great action comic-book movie, and also to make you care, and to tell a really good emotional story,” he says. The star of the show is Krypto — Superman’s white-coated, red-caped pup — who has been a part of DC Comics lore since 1955. And while he’s appeared in many comics and animated adaptations, he was still a bit of a blank slate. “He doesn’t have a definitive version that everybody knows,” says Levine. “So it just felt like an exciting opportunity.” The duo of Johnson and Hart, whose shelter pup eventually joins the Batman family, brings a lot of comedy firepower and personality to the movie. Johnson, arguably the world’s top action star, has an ability to play both emotion and comedy that made him the right fit for the character and his journey in the film. Hart’s rapid-paced comedy and instantly recognizable voice serves as an ideal foil. “At the heart this movie is about what it’s like, what it

means to be a dog … a good friend,” Levine says. ”[Johnson] really tackles those areas — and Kevin Hart does the same.” In addition to vintage comics, the movie’s look was inspired by Art Deco architecture and the work of magazine cover artist J.C. Leyendecker. Visible brushstrokes and “chunky heroic shapes” had a major influence on the look of the environments and characters, bringing a texture and warmth to the movie. “I’m so excited about the trend of the way CG is moving, where it can be more graphic,” Stern says. Finding space in a 100-minute movie for all those characters required a lot of iteration, Stern says. “That was one of the trickiest things,” he says. “It was just refining to find the right balance, and you could tell when it got there that it felt right.” Animation supervisor Dave Burgess says his team at Animal Logic was leaning into a graphic look inspired by the comics. “We really wanted pretty much every frame to be one

you could freeze frame on, and it would look right and appealing and well-designed,” he says. “I think once everybody kind of embraced that — it maybe took a little bit longer to do, but I think ultimately it really did make the animation look kind of gorgeous.” Stern credits character designers Mayumi Nose and Matt Williamês with finding the right balance between a caricatured look and heroism. “We looked at some of the Alex Toth designs for the Super-Friends [TV series] or the Curt Swan Superman [comics] from the Silver Age, but we also tried to make sure it feels like our animated characters are heroes and also funny,” says Stern. ”Our Superman has some comedy to him, in a way that fits into I think what we all love about Superman.” Once the characters were designed, Burgess says he and Williamês tried to figure out how to make each one look as appealing as possible in every frame. “Appeal is really one of those core tenets of animation, and it’s kind

august 22 11

www.animationmagazine.net

TOC

Features

of very subjective and nebulous,” he says. “To me, appeal is that intangible that makes you want to just grab the character, pull it out of the screen and hug it. So we really were trying to get as much of that into our designs and performances as we possibly could.” Animating human characters is hard enough, but it can be at least as difficult to animate animals — especially common ones like dogs, whose well-known behaviors can’t be faked. To get used to animating animals, Burgess says he gave his crew a ramp-up exercise of finding a video clip of a dog doing something athletic and matching it in animation. “An audience knows how a dog moves. They know how a cat moves. They know how a squirrel moves, to some degree,” he says. “Even if it’s on a subconscious level, we really have to make sure that it looks right.” There were other basic animation problems to solve when dealing with superheroes, including how to animate capes and making the audience believe these characters could fly. “They can’t just hover in the air,” Levine says. “They [need to] have some weight and some logic to how they’re moving in the sky.” That had to be balanced with the need for caricature and to help create emotion. “You can also go too far, and then you’re stuck with just realism,” Levine says. “The realism works for motion, and every now and then you break it for comedy.” ”We can get humor out of silent moments, as well as humor out of the written gags and the written dialogue,” Burgess says. ”[We were] trying to find places where we could get looks between characters or little beats of extra time for an eye roll or something like that. I think that added a lot to who the characters were, and it made the animation I think funnier.” The style of Super-Pets was new for Animal Logic, which previously animated features as diverse as the LEGO features, Peter Rabbit and Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole,

“We really wanted every frame to be one you could freeze frame on, and it would look right and appealing and well-designed.” — Animation supervisor Dave Burgess

Pet Sounds: The stellar voice cast also features Kevin Hart, Kate McKinnon, Olivia Wilde, Diego Luna, Ben Schwartz and Keanu Reeves.

Burgess says. ”In the LEGO movies, we absolutely, totally respected the limitations of what a mini-figure could do, so that meant the scale nodes were all locked, and there was no way you could scale or stretch anything,” he says. ”So on Super-Pets, we wanted to kind of open that box and give that tool back to the animators.” The crew topped out at about 70 animators, most of which were based in Vancouver with Animal Logic’s Sydney division pitching in for a while. Animators worked on the film for about two years, and had some extra time on the project after the original release date was pushed back a year due to the COVID-19 pandemic. “We got, I think, an extra three or four months tacked on to the end,” Burgess says.

Room for Fresh Ideas The movie was done with a sequence-based workflow, with Burgess “casting” the movie by deciding which animators get which shots. He also prefers giving animators longer sequences, allowing them to take ownership over a

chunk of the film instead of random scenes scattered throughout. “It helps break up a little bit of the tunnel vision that can happen in animation,” Burgess says. “If you have one single shot, it’s easy to really go down the rabbit hole on the shot and to lose a bit of perspective, because you get so obsessed with making your shot beautiful and perfect and the best animation ever. Whereas if you have five shots, you know that there’s a rhythm to each shot, and it flows from one to the next to the next.” That also helps the animators feel more creatively engaged in the movie, Burgess says. “Even though we had really, really great storyboards, and we had really wonderful layout, I still think that there’s room in the animation process to add new ideas and to bring new stuff to the table,” he says. “And the directors were always really delighted when we did that.” ◆ Warner Bros.’ DC League of Super-Pets is currently playing in theaters around the world.

www.animationmagazine.net 12

TOC

august 22

TOC

Features

august 22 13

www.animationmagazine.net

TOC

Features

One Shell of a Good Time Ant Ward and Andy Suriano give us the scoop on their awesome new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie.

f you need some action-packed fun and fantasy and a quartet of pizza-chomping, interplanetary alien-fighting heroes back in your life, then have to feast your eyes on Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Movie on Netflix this month. Directed by Nickelodeon series veterans Ant Ward and Andy Suriano and penned by Tony Gama-Lobo and Rebecca May, the pic features a killer cast that includes Ben Schwartz, Omar Miller, Brandon Mychal Smith, Josh Brener, Kat Graham, Eric Bauza, Haley Joel Osment, Rhys Darby and John Michael Higgins. The film’s plotline finds our favorite halfshell heroes encountering a mysterious stranger from the future named Casey Jones who warns them about the invasion of Earth from an alien force known as the Krang. Soon, the Turtles find themselves wrapped up in a super energetic and exciting mission to save the world from the soul-sucking aliens.

Two Parallel Tracks Ward and Suriano tell us that they actually started developing the movie back in October of 2018, but things really got moving on the

project in March of 2020. “The entire production was done during the COVID quarantine period,” recalls Ward. “We had about eight months to get the animatic ready and it was a very ambitious schedule.” Ward adds, “When the movie got greenlit, we were deep in telling the stories for season two of the show. The movie was on a definite trajectory. Because the second season was truncated, we couldn’t tell the entire story in the show. There were some things in the movie that are not going to quite align with the series, but we worked around them.” Helping the 90-plus team at Nickelodeon with the Toon Boom Harmony-based animation production were Australia’s Flying Bark as well as Top Draw studio in the Philippines. “They

helped us tell the story we wanted to tell,” says Ward. “We couldn’t have done it without them.” The duo points out that the feature format allowed them to bring nuances and layered character growth to the familiar characters. “We were able to feature a lot of growth for our Turtles, things which we could only do incrementally in a series. We knew we had a longer time with the story, so we were able to take each character on a journey and watch them grow,” says Suriano. “I think it will be a lot of fun for existing ROTMNT fans as they’re going to see some of the seeds that we planted earlier on pay off. Our goal was also to bring in some new fans and make this movie accessible to general Ninja Turtle fans. Some of the general TMNT fans will be able to enjoy

“You can have as much butt-kicking ninja action as you want, but if it doesn’t have heart and soul and some underlying sincerity and truth to it, it falls on the ground.”

www.animationmagazine.net 14

TOC

— Director Ant Ward august 22

TOC

Features Modern Heroine: Kat Graham provides the voice of Turtle ally April O’Neil in the movie.

“I believe that the movie’s animation style is so amazing, I can put it up against anything else out there. I don’t think anyone in the TV animation industry was able to do what we did in our series.” — Director Andy Suriano

some of the old fan favorites seen through our lens in this universe. You can really enjoy it from both perspectives.” Ward points out that the longer format allowed the team to really explore a larger, character-driven story. “We were able to do things that we weren’t able to achieve with an 11-minute series format. The movie is still incredibly kinetic and vibrant, but we were able to do a lot more.”

Family Affair Suriano mentions that the Turtles characters, which were originally created by Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird in 1984, are so close

to him and Ward that they feel like family. “I love the fact that we get to introduce them to a wider audience now. Hopefully that love and heart will translate as well,” he notes. “I believe that the movie’s animation style is so amazing, I can put it up against anything else out there. I don’t think anyone in the TV animation industry was able to do what we did in our series. The movie is going to be next-level for sure.” Ward, who has been playing in the muchloved TMNT sandbox since 2010 when he came on board as supervising producer on the first Nickelodeon show (2012-2017), says fans can look forward to seeing the return of some cannon favorites. “I think audiences will also

enjoy this story which is ultimately about friendship and trust and love in the familial sense,” he adds. “At the end of the day, you can have as much butt-kicking ninja action as you want, but if it doesn’t have heart and soul and some underlying sincerity and truth to it, it falls on the ground. It’s important to make it funny and make it action-packed, but always keep the heart!” Suriano concludes “We were able to put these characters in such an outlandish world because the show is grounded in so much heart. We really wanted the relationships between all of them to feel authentic; that was our North Star as we set out to tell all of these stories. We always needed these grounded elements to be able to go insane and totally batshit crazy with the action!” ◆ Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Movie premieres on Netflix on August 5. You can also catch both seasons of the series (39 episodes) on the streamer.

august 22 15

www.animationmagazine.net

TOC

Features

Hypnotic History Masaaki Yuasa’s Inu-Oh brings a rock opera sensibility to a 14th century tale of music, friendship and betrayal. By Charles Solomon

ased on the novel The Tale of the Heike (Heike Monogatari) translated by contemporary author Hideo Furukawa, Masaaki Yuasa’s new movie Inu-Oh (Dog-King) is set in 14th century Japan. The story centers on the friendship between a dancer born with unique physical characteristics and a blind musician. The film, which is produced by Science SARU (the Tokyo studio founded by Yuasa and producer Eunyoung Choi), was released in Japan in May, and will be released theatrically this month in the U.S., thanks to GKIDS. Inu-Oh draws on two pillars of traditional Japanese culture: The Tale of the Heike and Noh drama. The Tale of the Heike is an epic retelling of the Genpei War, the 12th century civil war in which the Heike and Genji samurai clans battled for control of the Imperial court and the country. The Heike were annihilated in the sea battle at Dan-no-Ura in 1185.

his father struck dead. Tomona makes his way to Kyoto, where he grows up to become a famous musician, performing sections of The Tale of the Heike, accompanying himself on the biwa (Japanese lute).

More than a century later, a young boy named Tomona and his family make their living on the shores of Dan-no-Ura fishing and diving for relics from the battle. At the behest of a cabal of corrupt nobles, Tomona and his father bring up the sacred sword the sun goddess Amaterasu Omikami gave to the ancestors of the Japanese Emperor, which was lost in the battle. For committing the sacrilege of looking on the holy blade, Tomona is blinded and

Unlike many recent American features which rely heavily on dialog, Yuasa uses the animation itself to tell much of the story. The audience sees Inu-Oh’s distorted, flailing limbs begin to move with an assured grace as they transform. Traditional Noh dances require the dancers to perform almost miniscule movements at an extremely slow pace. Yuasa and his artists discard those traditions: InuOh’s dances incorporate moves taken from classical

14th Century Pop Stars The principles of Noh, an exquisitely mannered form of theater, were also established during the early 14th century. The movie’s title character is the son of the leader of the foremost Noh troupe in Japan. Because his father struck a deal with a demon to obtain this prominence, Inu-Oh is grotesquely deformed. His limbs are of uneven lengths and his face is so hideous he must always wear a wooden mask. But as he learns to dance, Inu-Oh’s body transforms, assuming beautiful human proportions. He and Tomona combine forces, performing their original songs and dances, and they become 14th century pop stars.

Masaaki Yuasa

ballet, gymnastics and break dancing. “I thought the content of Noh handed down from this era was too narrow to describe the state of affairs then,” Yuasa explained in a recent email interview. “To capture the actual appearance of the past, I adopted the perspective that ‘anything we can imagine today must have been thought of at least once by someone in the past,’ and included various contemporary dance styles. As the original dances were an intense dedication to the gods, the dancers chose a more fundamentally dynamic form.” For the songs Tomona and Inu-Oh perform, Yuasa worked with actor/dancer Mirai Moriyama and pop star Avu-chan, who provide the characters’ voices. “I always participate in the creation of the music,” Yuasa said. “In this case, we created a video with a tentative song, then I asked the musicians to compose music to go with it. When the actors had recorded their lines except for the singing and had a good grasp of their characters, I asked them to write lyrics based on the tentative words. I tried to make the best use of their ideas as expressive artists and adjusted the singing style to match the picture and sound.” The Tale of the Heike stresses the Buddhist belief in the transience of all things: “The bold and brave perish in the end: They are as dust before the wind.” Yuasa echoes those sentiments when he concludes, “This film portrays weak people. They have done great things, but it is all as dust before the wind. I believe love and power will be remembered, but the most important thing is empathy and understanding in the moment.” ◆ GKIDS will release Inu-Oh in U.S. theaters on August 12.

www.animationmagazine.net 16

TOC

august 22

TOC

Features

august 22 17

www.animationmagazine.net

TOC

TV/Streaming

The Magic of Loved Toys Creator Shannon Tindle and director Peter Ramsey mix live action with CG animation with great impact in Lost Ollie. By Ramin Zahed

eloved toys come to life often in popular children’s books, TV shows and movies. But we have never seen them blend so beautifully into the live-action world as we do in the new Netflix mini-series Lost Ollie. Inspired by the acclaimed William Joyce book Ollie’s Odyssey, the four-part production was created by industry veteran Shannon Tindle and directed by Oscar winner Peter Ramsey. The engrossing storyline centers on a lost stuffed toy (voiced by Jonathan Groff) who

searches the countryside to be reunited with the sensitive young boy (Kesler Talbot) who lost him. The dynamite cast also features

the voices of Mary J. Blige and Tim Blake Nelson, Gina Rodriguez and Jake Johnson. The project is quite impressive in the way

“I want audiences to see Ollie, Rosy and Zozo as real characters, not just as toys and puppets. More than anything, I hope the show will lead to families talking about and discussing loss.”

www.animationmagazine.net 18

TOC

— Creator Shannon Tindle

august 22

TOC

TV/Streaming Puppeted Pals: Featuring CG animation produced by Industrial Light & Magic, Lost Ollie also showcases some first-rate voice acting by the Jonathan Groff (Ollie), Mary J. Blige (Rosy) and Tim Blake Nelson (Zozo).

it tackles powerful, darker subjects such as loss and separation for a family audience, as well as how it mixes performances by the live-action actors and backgrounds with CGanimated characters (courtesy of the wizards at Industrial Light & Magic). Tindle, who is best known for his standout character design and storyboards on features such as Kubo and the Two Strings, Coraline and The Croods and TV series such as Samurai Jack and Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends, was contacted by Netflix’s director of original series Ted Biaselli in the fall of 2018 about adapting Joyce’s book to a hybrid series. “I remember reading it and connecting to the material immediately,” he recalls. “I know the book came from a very personal place for Bill Joyce; I grew up in the South and wanted to make it personal for me as well, so I decided to set it in my hometown of Shepherdsville, Kentucky. The producers (Shawn Levy, Josh Barry and Emily Morris) seemed to dig my pitch and were crazy enough to hire me, so I started writing it in late 2018, early 2019.” Although Tindle had always worked in animation, he welcomed the chance to work in this hybrid format. “I was excited because I

Ollie character illustrations by Shannon Tindle

like telling stories, regardless of the medium,” he mentions. “The producers liked my big swings and interpretations. I have a very different approach to the way the magic works in this world. In the original, there are lots of objects that talk, besides the toys. But in our show, only kids who believe can hear the toys. Ollie is precious to Billy because his mom made it. They don’t have a lot of money to buy things, which is how it was in our family. I wanted to really preserve the core of what it feels like to lose someone.”

Animation Friends & Collaborators Tindle says he was also fortunate that his longtime friend and colleague Peter Ramsey was available and came on board to direct.

“We worked together at DreamWorks when he was directing Rise of the Guardians (which is, incidentally, also based on a book by William Joyce) and I was also at Sony when he was directing Spider-Verse. We hit it off from the very beginning, and when I moved back to L.A. after working on Kubo, we became instant friends. We always read each other’s stuff, and he read all the drafts of Lost Ollie before I asked him to join the project.” Ramsey, who is also currently exec producing Sony’s Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, was initially supposed to direct two of the four episodes of the show, but when Tindle’s other project Ultraman was greenlit around the same time, he agreed to help his friend by helming all four episodes. “If you

august 22 19

www.animationmagazine.net

TOC

TV/Streaming In Search of a Boy: Ollie manages to find his way back to the boy who lost him in the well-crafted miniseries created by Shannon Tindle, based on the book by William Joyce.

hear Shannon’s version, he asked me to direct all the episodes, but the way I remember it, he just told me I had to do all four!” jokes the in-demand director/producer. “I’d been reading the scripts for a year and a half before it went to pre-production, even before we had a writing room. I knew the depth that Shannon was going to bring to the story. I’m a huge fan of his writing. That’s what drew me in. He takes material that on the surface looks like a typical family and children’s fare, but he manages to infuse it with such depth and sincerity. He doesn’t shy away from darker, more painful truths and confronts a lot of things that other shows point away from or try to anesthetize.” “It was a great experience, but we were thrown into the deep end with all the things that you weren’t supposed to have in one project: kids, puppets, weather, animals … all together with one crazy fast schedule,” recalls Ramsey. Tindle says the biggest challenge was making the show’s puppet stars believable as living, breathing characters which interacted with the humans. “We had incredible puppeteers on the set, and we knew from the beginning that we were going to use CG,” he notes. “We were lucky because we had partners that trusted us. We knew early on that ILM was going to help us with the CG animation. From the point of view of Netflix, it was all about going with the best, and it was evident from the first test they knew how to make these characters believable.” Ramsey agrees.“One of the most challenging aspects was managing the gulf between what you want the show to look like and what it

“I knew the depth that Shannon was going to bring to the story. He takes material that on the surface looks like a typical family and children’s fare, but he manages to infuse it with such depth and sincerity.” — Director Peter Ramsey

looks like when you begin post!” he admits. “If you could only see the dailies with us, with me narrating while someone is running a puppet around our set! The poor execs were looking at the dailies wondering what was supposed to be happening. They were pretty good about biding their time to see what the results were going to be. Of course, animation is an incremental process. It’s always tough to imagine the end result before the flowers start to bloom.” The puppet characters were designed by Tindle and Kei Acadera and then, were brought to life by puppet designer Scott Johnson and fabricated by Jim Henson’s Creature Shop. Tindle praises the work of the project’s puppet consultant Ritamarie Peruggi, a Creature Shop veteran who also worked as a producer on The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance, Earth to Ned and Fraggle Rock, as well as ILM’s VFX producers Hayden Jones and Stefan Drury. “I loved working with them,” he says. “I think one of the reasons our digital characters look so great is that we had the actual puppets built, and they were brought to life by our amazing puppeteers. Then, we added the digital versions of the puppets in post.”

Precious Memories

into his own memories of growing up in a small town in Kentucky. “Folks don’t have a lot, and fantasy and imagination are hard to come by in places like that,” he says. “Our director of photography, C. Kim Miles, brought this big look to the show at a very compressed schedule. We were looking at classic films like Badlands and The Black Stallion for inspiration. We shot the majority of it in Vancouver, with the exception of one week that was done in my hometown. The location scout showed me a sign for the church, which was welded by my uncle. My aunt, uncle and grandmother are all buried in that church cemetery.” After putting so much of his own personal passion into this project, Tindle hopes audiences find themselves reflected in the world of Lost Ollie and its characters. “I want them to have fun and to be surprised,” he says. “I want audiences to see Ollie, Rosy and Zozo as real characters, not just as toys and puppets. More than anything, I hope the show will lead to families talking about and discussing loss. It’s about the importance of celebrating a loved one’s life and cherishing their memory. Just because they’re not with us anymore doesn’t mean we can’t still love them and remember the good times we had together.” ◆

When asked about the sources of inspirations for the show, Tindle says he reached out deep

Lost Ollie premieres on Netflix on August 24.

www.animationmagazine.net 20

TOC

august 22

TOC

TV/Streaming

Your Number-One Connection to the Global Animation Community

www.animationmagazine.net august 22 21

www.animationmagazine.net

TOC

TV/Streaming

A Family Affair Dan Povenmire’s new Disney Channel show Hamster & Gretel is inspired by his own experiences. By Ramin Zahed

ever underestimate the creative powers of a doodling animation genius! Take, for example, the case of Dan Povenmire, who was putting the finishing touches on Phineas and Ferb The Movie: Candace Against the Universe back in 2020. That’s when he found himself doodling a hamster superhero character. “I realized that I had done a lot of these doodles on the 3 X 5 cards we put on the board in the writers’ room,” recalls the creator of the five-time Emmy-winning show Phineas and Ferb. “One night, as I was tucking my daughter in her bed, I showed her the picture and I told her the story of a super-hamster, and we both couldn’t stop laughing!” Cut to a few months later, when Povenmire pitched the idea to the development team at Disney Channel — and wouldn’t you know, he got the greenlight for his new show, Hamster & Gretel. The charming music-filled series, which premieres this month on the cable outlet, centers on a brother and sister named Kevin and Gretel who are about to gain super powers from space aliens,

“It’s a superhero comedy, so it also has a lot of action, but then, you have this sweet core that is about family relationships. I think It’s perhaps the best thing I have done.” — Creator Dan Povenmire

but things don’t go as planned: It’s Gretel and her pet hamster who get the magical abilities. The talented voice cast includes Povenmire’s own daughter Meli as Gretel, Michael Cimino as Kevin and Beck Bennett as Hamster.

Sitcom Siblings Povenmire, who is best known for cocreating Phineas and Ferb and Milo Murphy’s Law with Jeff “Swampy” Marsh, has worked on a wide range of animated shows including The Simpsons, Family Guy, SpongeBob SquarePants and Hey Arnold! He says the new toon is different from his previous work because it’s loosely based on his own family life. “My wife is from Venezuela and I have these two blond and red-haired Latin daughters,” he

explains. “So the mom and dad on the show look like me and my wife. The heart of the show is also about the relationship between a brother and a sister, which is similar to the one I had with my youngest sister. We had 10 years between us, and there was no competition. I could be the cool older brother who had pillow fights with her.” The 2D-animated Hamster & Gretel, which is produced by Disney Television Animation, with the help of Snipple Animation (Manila, The Philippines) and Synergy Animation (Shanghai, China), features lots of funny songs and has the same visual style as some of Povenmire’s previous hits. “The characters and the color scheme are different, but it feels like it’s part of the same family as my other shows,” he notes. “I have a signature style — and who

www.animationmagazine.net 22

TOC

august 22

TOC

TV/Streaming Accidental Powers: A young girl and his pet hamster become unlikely superheroes in Dan Povenmire's new Disney animated series Hamster & Gretel.

there and the story remained solid. So, I think what works is giving people the freedom to elaborate and add to the script after it’s done.” The show creator says he misses working with his old Phineas and Ferb animation partner Jeff “Swampy” Marsh. “Swampy has his own studio in Venice, and we talk all the time,” he notes. “He is working on another show for Disney — [we] couldn’t get him to drive over the hill to Disney for another show! But we talk all the time, and he’s doing a voice for our show! I miss seeing him every day. I do have other collaborators that I write and work with so I feel like this new show has the same kind of collaborative humor.”

Everyone’s Working!

Dan Povenmire's daughter Meli voices the lead role in the show.

knows, maybe we can do a crossover episode with Phineas and Ferb one day!” He does point out that you may notice more of the classic Disney style in Gretel’s design. “You can see it in her eyes, which accentuates her cuteness. It’s part of the reason we all liked my daughter’s Meli’s voice for the character. She sounds like a little girl, but she has this toughness about her, too. She originally did the temp voice for the pilot, but when we tried to find a well-known actress for the part, we couldn’t find anyone that was as funny as her. She knows my sense of humor and always nailed the reads. She became the voice of Gretel and she loves it!” Since the show was created and produced during the pandemic, Povenmire said he has

simply communicated with everyone via Zoom over the past couple of years, but he’s looking forward to going back to in-person collaborations. “We have somewhere about 60 to 70 people on staff, and they all appear in boxes on the Zoom screen,” he notes. “When you’re in the studio, you get to know everyone, but we only see each other at meetings now. We’re going to have a big lunch soon and I am looking forward to meeting all the artists in person.” According to Povenmire, while the show has a writers’ room, it also is flexible enough to incorporate storyboard ideas. “It’s kind of a hybrid,” he notes. “When I was a lot younger, doing a storyboard-driven show was a lot of fun. You’d get a bunch of people in the room and sometimes, the story would just go off on a tangent. Then, we had to write it to make sure the story would fit, and we had to lose a lot of the funniest gags. Then, we had to punch it up, and someone had to draw it all, so there was a lot of triage. When we did the Phineas and Ferb movies, we used a script first and had a story that worked, but we were welcome to add to it. It wasn’t set in stone. The movie felt just like one of the episodes. The humor was

When asked about the unpredictable nature of the animation business, Povenmire says that the toon boom has been incredible and the biggest he’s witnessed since he started out in the business. “Netflix canceled a few of their shows last month, but that means we have more of a talent pool to staff our shows,” he notes. “It took longer for us to staff because everyone is working on something right now. There’s a lot of good stuff coming out on a regular basis. I don’t have the time to watch all the good shows I want to watch! Maybe one day I’ll retire and be able to catch up on all the great animated shows my friends are working on!” He also points out that it has never been a more egalitarian time for people to put their content out into the world. “If you want to make cartoons or any kind of entertainment, you can do it and find an audience. You don’t need to wait for a studio to hire you like I had to when I was entering the field. Now you can put your material on TikTok and YouTube, or have your portfolio on social media. If you do good work, you’ll get some eyeballs on it, and if you’re not, you can find out what you’re doing wrong, and keep at it, until you get better.” For now, Povenmire is happy that audiences get to discover his new show and memorable characters this summer. “I’m proud of the fact that Hamster & Gretel has a lot of heart,” he says. “Just like Phineas and Ferb, it’s a very funny show and it has a lot of songs. We have the same kind of humor, but I wasn’t expecting how moved I would be by a lot of the material, and the interactions between the characters. It’s a superhero comedy, so it also has a lot of action, but then, you have this sweet core that is about family relationships. I think It’s perhaps the best thing I have done.” ◆ Hamster & Gretel premieres Friday, August 12 on Disney Channel.

august 22 23

www.animationmagazine.net

TOC

TV/Streaming

Prehistoric Perfection The inimitable animation genius Genndy Tartakovksy discusses the second season of his acclaimed show, Primal.

hen Genndy Tartakovsky’s fivetime Emmy-winning series Primal premiered on Adult Swim block in 2019, fans and critics alike were dazzled by its poetic beauty and stunningly powerful animation. The dialog-free show, which follows the engrossing and at times brutal adventures of a Neanderthal man and his Tyrannosaurus companion, has been universally lauded for its perfect storytelling, beautiful imagery and striking 2D animation. This summer, we have the pleasure of returning to the world of Spear and Fang as they meet new adversaries and face even more heartbreaking challenges. Tartakovsky (Dexter’s Laboratory, Samurai Jack, Hotel Transylvania), who recently signed an exclusive multi-year overall deal with Cartoon Network and Warner Bros. Animation, was kind enough to answer a few of our questions about the new season of Primal and more: Animation Magazine: So, first of all, congrats on delivering another magnificent season

of Primal. Can you take us back to when you started working on this second season? What were your goals? Genndy Tartakovsky: We started on the second season right after we were finishing the first one, around October of 2019. We continue to work with our overseas partner, Studio La Cachette [ Love, Death + Robots: Sucker of Souls, Mune: Guardian of the Moon]. I had always kind of planned out the story for our second season, but in the beginning it was more cliché. I didn’t think it was good, so we redid it and came up with a storyline that was much more exciting and different. I think it will catch everybody by surprise. One great thing about the new season is that we explore one giant narrative. What would you say were your biggest challenges as you set out to expand the world of Spear and Fang? Well, the scale was a lot bigger this season. Fortunately, since I’ve been doing it for over 30 years, I have a little more say about how

long the schedule should be, so they gave us more time to make the show and more freedom to deliver it at the right pace. We have our art director Scott Wills, designer Stephen DeStefano, character designer Erika Worthylake, producer Shareena Carlson, color stylist Roger Webb, background artist Christian Schellewald. I did most of the storyboards, along with David Krentz. And then, there’s the team at La Cachette in Paris. Which animation tools do you use at the studio? We use TVPaint. It really changed my life. When La Cachette sends up the layout, I can just open the file, make the corrections, label it and then send it right back. Before this, I used to have to get things xeroxed or get frame grabs. This way, animation is at my fingertips. We can really spend the time and make it all better along the way. So great not to have to deal with exposure sheets which were so time consuming! You can really fine-tune things and get more nuanced today.

www.animationmagazine.net 24

TOC

august 22

TOC

TV/Streaming

Ground-Shattering: Told with almost no dialog, Primal’s second season continues to mix majestic visuals, ground-shaking roars and moments of stunning emotional power.

Why do you think the show has attracted such a huge fan base? Well, first of all, I think it’s beautiful to look at. Ever since I saw Scott Wills’ paintings, even before Samurai Jack, I couldn’t take my eyes off of them. They were very special and really artistic. In terms of story, we really tried to focus on the relationship between Spear and Fang. It’s never just violence for the sake of having it. We could easily have gone in that direction, but we really wanted to focus on the relationship. That’s why there was a big exploration of the relationship between a man and a beast — or “dog,” however you want to look at it. It’s very accessible and simple. Exactly. Tell us a little bit about how interesting it is to explore a dialog-free format? Well, we have a few words in the second season, but it’s still not English, so it’s almost like they’re not talking. It’s been the biggest surprise for me to realize how much more you are drawn in and focused because they’re not talking. My biggest fear in the beginning days was that the show would be too much like an independent movie. But now, I feel like we’ve connected with the audience the same way as a regular show. It’s more about how. You really feel the visuals. Are there any plans to release Primal Season 2 theatrically, like the first season?

Well, the second season is 10 episodes long, so that would be a very long movie. But maybe someone could do a two-hour cut version of it! In June, you offered a work-in-progress session at Annecy for your upcoming show Unicorn: Warriors Eternal. Can you tell us a little bit about that series? It’s a show for HBO Max and it’s basically about these heroes who are reborn through time to fight this evil. Our main characters are reborn as teenagers, so it’s a metaphor for young people coming into their own and becoming an adult. They have these memory fragments of their powers. The show is a steampunk, magical mystery-action-comedy-drama. We don’t know yet whether it will be ready this fall or maybe next year. We are working with the same team at Studio La Cachette again. It’s completely different from Primal. I feel just as Primal was my evolution in the action and visual storytelling format, Unicorn explores the comedy and action genres and also has a very strong emotional and dramatic component.

Finally, what’s your take on the crazy, fast-changing world of animation in 2022? As you know, there is so much going on. You feel that everyone was hired last year and you had a hard time staffing shows. Of course, there are all these changes happening now. The name of the company has changed, from Hanna Barbera to Cartoon Network to Warner Bros. and AT&T and Discover. We’ve been through this multiple times, and we’re just strapped in for the ride as long as they want us to make shows. I also have the movie Fixed happening at Sony Pictures Animation (about a dog-next-door who is in love with a show dog, and finds out that he is getting neutered in the morning), which is hopefully coming out next summer. How do you feel about the recent boom in adult animation today? It seems like right now we’re having a very good moment for adult animation, especially in Europe. I think it’s really starting to break away from The Simpsons/Family Guy mold. Back when I was 18, my friends and I were hoping for more adult animated projects and now I feel that we are finally seeing the fruition of all those dreams. We are seeing this growth and move forward in that artistic direction. ◆ Genndy Tartakovsky’s Primal is currently airing on Adult Swim and HBO Max.

august 22 25

Genndy Tartakovksy

www.animationmagazine.net

TOC

TV/Streaming

Meet That Designing Wascally Wabbit! Everyone’s favorite Looney Tunes characters teach preschoolers about building, design and problem solving in the new show Bugs Bunny Builders. By Karen Idelson

n the original Looney Tunes cartoons, selfdescribed super genius Wile E. Coyote was always on the cutting edge of STEM experimentation. Utilizing his own imaginings and materials from the Acme Corporation, the bewildered prairie wolf failed hilariously — but was never so discouraged that he stopped trying to catch the Road Runner. So, it’s only fitting that in the new preschool animated show Bugs Bunny Builders we find a familiar cast of characters working together, learning about building and design as well as collaboration, self-expression and problem-solving. “I think we really focused on keeping the characters’ core personality traits intact, and then we just avoided any mature behaviors,” says Nicole Belisle, producer and story editor for the show, which premiered on HBO Max and Cartoon Network’s Cartoonito block last month. “To give an example: With Wile E. Coyote, he’s not trying to eat the Road Runner in our show,” she explains. “He’s just incredibly annoyed by his presence. So, we have one episode where he goes to extreme lengths

to keep the Road Runner away. And then in another episode, he’s trying to beat the Road Runner in a race. But I think that you’ll see that Bugs is still casual and chomping on his carrot, Porky is still meticulous and easily flustered and Daffy is just all over the place and super daffy. We really wanted to hold on to those core personality traits while just avoiding any mature ideas or themes.”

Mindful of the Legacy Supervising producer and showrunner Abe Audish says he also had the history of Looney Tunes in mind as he and the team crafted each episode. “We wanted to do is make sure we established a world where all our favorite and beloved Looney Tunes characters from

the past can show up and everybody has some kind of problem to solve or build that they need to create,” says Audish, who has also worked on shows such as as Sanjay and Craig, Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Tig N’ Seek. “We’re having fun with the characters, but we’ve changed the characters a bit in terms of some of the things that they want, who they are, and we’ve also expanded some new characters for the show.” He adds, “Having those characters that have such a rich past history was so much fun. Even as we’re thinking about other characters and their possible storylines, there’s so much to work with here. We’re excited to work with each one of these characters. We want to go back to some old characters and revisit them

“We’ve changed the characters a bit in terms of the things that they want and who they are, and we’ve also expanded some new characters for the show.” — Supervising producer Abe Audish

www.animationmagazine.net 26

TOC

august 22

TOC

TV/Streaming

and have new builds and challenges for them. It’s been a very exciting and fun process.” Warner Bros. Animation was the main production studio, with Snipple, an animation studio in the Philippines with offices in London, and Digital eMation, located in Korea, providing additional animation services. This new younger take on Looney Tunes classics features the likes of Bugs, Daffy, Porky, Tweety, Sylvester, Petunia, Wile E. Coyote, Taz, and Lola as they work together in a preschoolfriendly world. Of course, they’ll use many of their classic personality traits and abilities to solve problems and meet challenges. They’ll retain essential aspects of their looks, but the character style has also been updated. “We just made them a little bit softer, a little brighter, making the line work a little bolder,” says Audish. “The art director and I made sure that we tried to incorporate a nostalgia for the original look of Looney Tunes while using a style that’s geared toward a young audience so kids

get familiarized with it. It’s classic Looney Tunes, but brighter and more simplified. We wanted to simplify the voicers, too. Our voice director and I really wanted to make sure we slowed down the verbiage in the speech patterns in the dialog. This way the audience understands the story and doesn’t get lost. That’s part of the STEM work we’re doing, just making sure that our audience understands what’s going on.” Eric Bauza, a tireless veteran Looney Tunes actor, returns as the voices of Bugs, Tweety and Daffy. Another familiar Looney Tunes thesp, Bob Bergen, is voicing Porky, while Lola Rabbit is played by Chandni Parekh. Additional voice actors include Jeff Bergman as Sylvester, Alex Cazares as Petunia Pig and Fred Tatasciore as Taz. Cartoonito’s curriculum director Dr. Laura Brown believes the show supports the interest and excitement kids have for building. In particular, she’s noted the design thinking process of imagining, building and fixing

“First and foremost, we want to tell the best story. For us that means coming up with a really ‘Looney’ build and a fun character arc to follow and then baking that into our design curriculum.” — Producer/story editor Nicole Belisle

Limitlessly Looney: Bugs, Lola, Daffy, Porky and Tweety teach young viewers how to plan, design and get ready for all kinds of Acme mishaps in Bugs Bunny Builders.

and the emotional intelligence of learning to work together. Bugs Bunny Builders aims to include stories that inspire kids to develop interpersonal skills as well as STEM.

Baking in the Design Elements “I think, first and foremost, we want to tell the best story,” says Belisle, whose previous credits include Kung Fu Panda: Paws of Destiny, Mickey Mouse Funhouse and Go, Dog. Go! “So, we always think about that first, and for us that means coming up with a really ‘Looney’ build and a fun character arc to follow and then baking that into our design curriculum, which consists of imagining the build and the fix, and then we achieve that by working closely with our educational consultant, as well as our executives, just to make sure that each episode is easy to comprehend.” She adds, “Of course, we still want to be very ‘Looney.’ It was very important to us that we not lose any of the ‘Looney’ or fun parts of the characters and that we still make it palatable for such a young audience. I find so much fun to work with the cast of characters that we get to work with on this show. I grew up watching classic Looney Tunes, and to have a chance to write for their voices and to see our artists bring a show to life is really special. It’s exciting to introduce these iconic characters to a young audience.” Belisle says she can’t wait for the show to premiere so that kids can meet these new incarnations of the familiar characters. “We’ve been really cognizant of also looking at it as a family show and I think there’s something for everyone in this show,” she notes. “We also have wordplay for older kids and nods to the classics for the parents, so I really think the whole process has been about including the whole family in this show. The payoff has been really huge.” ◆ Bugs Bunny Builders currently streams on HBO Max and airs on Cartoon Network’s Cartoonito block.

august 22 27

www.animationmagazine.net

TOC

Event Spotlight

The Visual Pulse of the Machine SIGGRAPH’s Electronic Theater keeps an eye on the latest global VFX and CG animation achievements. By Ellen Wolff

IGGRAPH is often considered a popular barometer of progress in the field of computer-generated imagery, and the 2022 gathering in Vancouver, B.C. continues that tradition. Technical papers and presentations chronicle the latest breakthroughs by researchers, production companies and product developers. But the hottest ticket is always The Electronic Theater — the juried “Best Of” show that honors the year’s achievements. “ET” has been a qualifying showcase for Oscar consideration since 1999, and this year received 325 entries from around the world. Overseeing the show is Darin Grant, Chief Technology Officer at Animal Logic, who flags several trends worth watching. “The award winners this year — two of which are students — are experimenting with new types of visualizing animation,” says Grant. “Some purposely chose non-photorealistic styles to help underscore the mood and tone of their content. Back in the day, they couldn’t achieve photorealism. That’s not the case anymore.” He cites the example of the breakdown of The Bad Guys by DreamWorks Animation. “They did standard rendering, and then they did all this additional work on top of that to make it look non-photorealistic. It’s inspiring to see visuals that are now pushing the boundaries of the medium.” Grant himself has contributed to that growth. Prior to joining Animal Logic four years ago, his multi-decade career has included tenures at Digital Domain, DreamWorks Animation and Method Studios. And in addition to Grant’s SIGGRAPH responsibilities, he’s involved in the Academy’s Software Foundation and Sci Tech Council as well as the Visual Effects Society.

“The award winners this year — two of which are students — are experimenting with new types of visualizing animation. Some purposely chose non-photorealistic styles to help underscore the mood and tone of their content. Back in the day, they couldn’t achieve photorealism. That’s not the case anymore.” — Daren Grant, CTO, Animal Logic and Director, Electronic Theater

So, Grant brings an experienced eye to a survey of the SIGGRAPH landscape. Catching his attention this year are developments in machine learning, deep fakes, procedural tools, open-source software and the growing use of virtual production techniques like LED walls.

Machine Learning Given the current buzz about self-driving cars, the use of machine learning as a strategy for generating synthetic environments will be a topic at SIGGRAPH. It’s an appealing vision for making animated films and movies featuring live actors in virtual environments. But Grant cautions, “Machine learning is dependent on having a huge sample set from the world to create a model that can run effectively. To train machine learning models, you need tons of consistent data.” Grant cites the five feature films in The Electronic Theater this year — The Batman, Encanto, The Bad Guys, Dune and Everything Everywhere All at Once. They show vastly different worlds, and when environments differ widely, he says it’s difficult to apply machine learning. “If something needs to run in a metaverse, that’s 24/7 content — it’s not 90 minutes of curated content telling a story.” He

Hornet’s “Colors and Shapes” video for Mac Miller

adds, “Sometimes, creating a machine learning model for a particular rig is more work than creating the rig itself! That’s why machine learning gets applied to things that are continuous.” But strategies are emerging to benefit other production processes. As Grant explains, “There’s a software company in Australia called Kognat which applies machine learning to rotoscoping.” Stay tuned. Deep fakes will likely get attention at SIGGRAPH, especially given the expectation that a digitally anti-aged version of Luke Skywalker may appear in Disney’s Boba Fett. When the digital doppelgangers of famous actors survive scrutiny at 4K resolution, Deep Fakes will represent more than lower res sleight-of-hand. As Grant remarks, “We’re seeing a trend where people can do fully CG characters, and VFX studios are embracing deep fakes in their workflows and processes. At the Visual Effects Bakeoff last year, the creators of the VES nominee Free Guy talked about how at the last minute they tried to do a deep fake with a character and it worked … and how they should have started with it!” That’s what’s exciting about these developments: the opportunity to enhance the artistic

Alternative Mesozoique, an award-winning graduation project from ESMA (France).

www.animationmagazine.net 28

TOC

august 22

TOC

Event Spotlight Zoon by Jonatan Schwenk

workflow, Grant asserts. “You still must do the animation of the character. But you can now add an extra level of realism that used to be prohibitive in terms of time and money.” The film business adage of ‘Time, Quality, Cost: Pick Two’ still holds true.

Virtual Production A trend that’s worth watching is the use of virtual production techniques like LED walls to bring synthetic backgrounds onto live-action sets. This approach was highlighted in ILM’s SIGGRAPH presentation of The Mandalorian last year, and Grant says that the current ET features a breakdown of LED effects in Warner Bros.’ The Batman, with VFX supervisor Dan Lemmon (an Oscar winner for The Jungle Book) presenting in-camera effects shots. Grant explains, “LEDs are projected light, not the reflected light used in rear projection. The actors sit in an environment, and are actually being lit.” This harkens back to the obvious rear projection used in Hitchcock’s classic films. Grant observes, “LED walls are the replacements for that. They speed up the process.” He notes that LED walls were used for the creation of the exteriors rolling past the train windows in the most recent Murder on the Orient Express. And the use of large LED walls has led to massive upgrades of the stages where Marvel shoots

Obsidian Ent.’s upcoming game The Outer Worlds 2

hybrid movies like The Avengers. “Here’s the crazy thing,” Grant remarks, “People are now trying to do phased recordings at a normal rate of 23.99 — but they’re alternating frames on the LED wall. They can record the in-camera VFX on one stream and an LED greenscreen background, so they can do some compositing work later. It’s imperceptible to the eye, but it’s putting a greenscreen back there so that you can still capture an actor live against greenscreen while you’re capturing them lit by the effects team. It’s a different type of filmmaking.”

Software Trends As a veteran technologist, Grant keenly watches software trends at SIGGRAPH. He’s long been involved with tool development, including Digital Domain’s popular compositing tool Nuke. “I managed the first generation of Nuke to be released,” he recalls. While Nuke became commoditized, Grant says, “Companies still use proprietary tools. At Animal Logic we use an internal renderer called Glimpse. DreamWorks and Framestore have their own renderers. And Pixar developed RenderMan to establish dominance, not to make a profit.” A trend Grant is now watching is the proliferation of open-source tools. “It may not make sense for companies to keep some of their components proprietary — whether it’s a file format or a library.

Everything Everywhere All at Once

DNEG has developed an open-source playback tool to rule them all, so none of us has to invest internal proprietary efforts in our own playback tool. When you’re talking about a differentiator, my playback tool is not differentiating my software. There are more and more toolsets in the opensource community, which help lift all boats.” Proprietary efforts are more likely to remain focused on areas like procedural software — like Animal Logic’s fabric simulation tool Weave, used to produce convincing cloth for the Peter Rabbit films. “Proceduralism is about finding ways to have machines do things that are hard to do by hand.” The goal is to not waste artists’ time doing something that could be done via computer. “Independent films like Everything Everywhere All at Once could not have been made without the broad commoditization of effects,” Grant believes. “They created 500 VFX shots and 90% of them were done by five artists.” He’s heartened by the trend that more indie films may be spotlighted at SIGGRAPH. That’s notable, given that this is not Grant’s first rodeo. He previously oversaw the Electronic Theater back in 2003. “Nineteen years later, I’m doing the same job!” he says with a smile. ◆ For more info, visit s2022.siggraph.org/program/ electronic-theater.

DreamWorks Animation’s The Bad Guys

august 22 29

www.animationmagazine.net

TOC

Event Spotlight

SIGGRAPH: Spotlight on the 2022 Prize Winners Best in Show: The Seine’s Tears Director: Yanis Belaid Pôle 3D, France

aris during the events of October 1961, when French police brutally repressed Algerian protestors, is the backdrop of the powerful short The Seine’s Tears, directed by Yanis Belaid. The director, a graduate of the French digital and creative school Pôle 3D, recalls, “We were inspired by the short music video In My Heart by Pedro Conti, and also used the acclaimed 2016 movie Ma vie de Courgette (My Life as a Zucchini) as a reference for stop-motion rendering. For we had references from live-action cinema. We used an on-board camera and wanted it to be an entire character in the film. We analyzed how Films like The End of Watch or The Blair Witch Project used that camera style to recreate it. We wanted the viewers to feel like they are in the protest with our characters, to have the point of view of the Algerians and of all those people who came to demonstrate that night.” Belaid and his team of eight began work on the short in September of 2019, and it took

them about two years to finish their project. All the animation was done in Maya. “To create this stop-motion look, we did some animation research and, after some tests, we finally chose to develop a script that copies at 80% the previous key,” explains the director. “This way, the movement stays fluid so the motion blur can be calculated, but it still has this jerky quality .We also had a tool to reuse the foreground animations in the crowd, mostly in the second part of the film in the stadium. It helped us create density without having to animate everything.” The director points out that he wanted to cast light on the tragic events of October 1961 in Paris. “These events are still quite misunderstood in France,” says Belaid. “We wanted to get viewers to learn more about them after the screenings. Putting the spotlight on this historic event was the very point of our project.” He also says he remains positive about the future, despite the fact that the subject of the short is quite eye-opening. “We try to give hope for the future,” he says. “Therefore, I like the second part of the short best because it is way more festive and colorful! We wanted to make a contrast be-

tween this festive act and the violence and sadness of the first part of the film. In a short film we don’t have much time to develop the narrative aspect. But what’s interesting is to find the writing techniques that are the most effective. We spent a lot of time thinking about what we deeply wanted to say. This process of thinking, research and creativity stimulated us during the whole conception stage of the film.” Looking back at the experience of making the short, Belaid calls it “a human adventure.” He adds, “To put it all in context, we made this short during our final two years of school. It allowed some people in the group to discover themselves, professionally speaking, or to solidify their professional desires for the future. Personally, it definitely validated my desire to be a director.” Belaid mentions Pixar’s Toy Story and Bruce Timm and Paul Dini’s Batman: The Animated Series as two of his biggest animated favorites. “As a kid, my hero was Batman from the TV series. I’m still a big fan, and the credits still make me dream today. The animated film that rocked my childhood was Toy Story. Even to this day, I find this movie so well written and intelligent.”

The Seine’s Tears

www.animationmagazine.net 30

TOC

august 22

TOC

Event Spotlight The End of War

Jury’s Choice: The End of War Director: Lei Chen Tsinghua University, China

bout two years ago, Lei Chen, the director of the SIGGRAPH Jury Prize-winning short The End of War, set out to make an anti-war short. “My inspiration mainly came from Käthe Kollwitz’s wood prints and her life. Her works always depict the effects of poverty, hunger and war. During WWI, her son Peter joined the army and died. I read her diary and realized that it could make a short story. The source of art inspiration is the Soviet propaganda art in the Cold War period, which gives the short a touch of irony.” Since the short was an experimental project, Chen insisted on doing most of the work himself. “But some of my friends and other students helped me out from time to time,” he says. “Donald Chen helped me with some modeling,

Wen Bo Mi did the music and Darren Dai did the sound design. There were about 10 people who helped me with the short. I mainly used Maya and ZBrush — ZBrush was definitely the most important tool for this project. And the good thing about Maya is that you have the freedom to build a customized pipeline from scratch.” Chen mentions that one of his biggest challenges was finishing the short in time. “You always run out of time,” he points out. “Because of the frame-by-frame nature of the project, it is unbelievably time consuming. As to my rough evaluation, that was supposed to be two year’s work while I had to finish the project in early 2022. So I was working for more than 15 hours a day in the last months. I had three days off for the Chinese New Year and I dreamed that I was working for three nights in a row. I was a bit scared, but the ‘symptom’ went away on the fourth day, because I went back to work again!” Now that the world is able to watch and enjoy his short, Chen says he is pleased with the

project’s visualization of the battle scenes. “But to be honest ,everything could have been better if I had more time or money,” he adds. “The best part of working in animation is that you pretty much have full control of it. Working on shorts, every time when I hit the ‘play’ button, I feel what I felt when I drew my first animation in the corner of the pages of my primary school textbook. Animation is magic!” When asked about his animation heroes, Chen mentions Jan Švankmajer, Aleksandr Petrov, Kihachiro Kawamoto and Hayao Miyazaki. He notes, “My favorite short film is Petrov’s The Old Man and the Sea.” Chen hopes audiences will appreciate his creative art style when they watch The End of War at SIGGRAPH. “To be very frank, I thought the anti-war topic was even a bit cliché nowadays,” he explains. “But the Russian invasion of Ukraine just proved me wrong. I hope people get some insights after seeing my film. We should never take peace for granted.”

august 22 31

www.animationmagazine.net

TOC

Event Spotlight Yallah!

Best Student Project: Yallah! Director: Nayla Nassar Rubika, France

hen Nayla Nassar’s father was a young man growing up in war-torn Lebanon, he had to go to a swimming pool for a test, oblivious of the bombings and strict citywide warnings. “He went there, only to find himself in a bathing suit, with goggles on, right in front of a huge bomb hole,” says Nassar. “This image was way too surreal not to make a short out of it!” Her father’s fascinating experiences in Lebanon inspired her student project at Rubika, which has received the Best Student Prize at SiGGRAPH this year. Nassar and five other students worked on the short from September 2019 until June 2021. “We had great guidance from our teachers at Rubika, and we received generous help from a composer and three sound designers, who gave life to our images,” she notes. “The short was made in CGI, using Maya as our main software. The concepts, matte paintings and most of the textures were done with Photoshop, but Substance

Painter came in handy when it came to painting characters and automating our buildings’ textures. We used Arnold renderer to calculate the images and Nuke for compositing.” One of the greatest challenges for Nassar and her co-directors Edouard Pitula and Renaud De Saint Albin was nailing the right tone for the short. “We had to find the right balance between the reality of war and the joy and hope that still exist there, and that we wanted to put first,” she notes. “On a more technical level, we made a lot of effort to make the city detailed and full of life, while still having our characters fit with their background.” Nassar mentions the 2006 feature Tekkonkinkreet by Michael Arias as one of the short’s key visual sources of reference. “The city is depicted so precisely,” she says. “On a more personal note, I’m a huge fan of I Lost My Body by Jérémy Clapin, as well as the work of Sylvain Chomet.” She says one of the biggest lessons she learned from the making of the short was how to trust the process. “By process, I mean teamwork and going through production step by step, but always being careful not to get

lost in the details or new ideas that won’t fit the main intention for the short.” Nassar points out that the opportunity to connect with her father’s childhood through this film has been quite amazing. “It’s going to sound cheesy, but I love that it’s so personal to me and speaks to so many people at the same time,” she offers. “People’s reactions to the short have been extremely nice and gratifying. We also had great fun creating my dad’s character from pictures of him as a young boy. In more general terms, I love the liberty that you have when you work in animation. There’s no limit with animation, you can always push things further — and with short films, there’s less pressure, more room for experimentation.” Finally, the director hopes her short will bring a smile to people’s faces. “I hope they’ll want to find joy and resistance in simple things, like Naji did by going for a swim that day!” she concludes. ◆ The award-winning films will screen in SIGGRAPH 2022’s Computer Animation Festival in the Electronic Theater both in Vancouver and online (August 8-11).

www.animationmagazine.net 32

TOC

august 22

MIPJunior-PagePrint_ANIMATIONMAGAZINE-213x276-Print.pdf

21/07/2022

10:59

TOC

Event Spotlight

august 22 33

www.animationmagazine.net

TOC

Event Spotlight

A Rewarding Journey The animated short Picchu highlights the beauty and educational challenges of Ecuador.

roduced end-to-end by a geographically distributed creative team using Amazon Nimble Studio, the animated short Picchu follows the journey of an Andean girl named Mayu and the unconditional support of her mother. Written and directed by Amaru Zeas, the short follows Mayu’s challenging journey as she must rely on her determination and her mother’s teachings to overcome her fears and doubts to fulfill her destiny. Set to pan flute music against the backdrop of the Andes Mountains, Picchu was brought to life by creative studio FuzzyPixel, which produced the project in nine months with a small geographically distributed team using Amazon Nimble Studio. “In so many ways, Picchu is a reflection of my own story, and how my mom encouraged me to serve and inspire others with my work,” shared Ecuador native Zeas. “I’m proud of my culture, but also know Ecuador’s struggles in education. Picchu is about overcoming your fears with strength and determination to access education in an unequal society.”

Nimble Venture Picchu is the second film created by FuzzyPixel and its first project to fully leverage Amazon Nimble Studio, which provides an end-to-end creative pipeline on Amazon Web Services (AWS). As a creative team within AWS, the artists are the first users of cutting-edge

cloud-based solutions, and their feedback informs development initiatives. Their experiences also shape tutorial content to better guide users through various aspects of the technology. “Picchu is both a creative and technical achievement,” says AWS Animation Producer Jennifer Dahlman. “From the embroidery details on Mayu’s poncho, to the native plants that change as she journeys through different elevations, special attention was paid to honor the location in which it is set. At the same time, we’re pushing the technology and experimenting with how we structure our production workflows — experiments that larger and more established teams can’t afford to take. It’s an exciting time to be at AWS.” Artists began Picchu asset development in July 2021 using Linux- and Windows-based virtual workstations powered by Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) G4dn instances. Centralized storage on Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) enabled the globally dispersed team to collaborate using

the same data and environments. Open source tool Blender served as the primary creative application, alongside Autodesk Maya, Foundry’s Nuke, Pixologic’s ZBrush and Adobe’s Substance Painter. To further support open source initiatives, FuzzyPixel opted to make Picchu Blender assets available for artists to use in their own workflows, at no cost. “We used different tools to fit the style and story, but we also wanted to push Blender to its limits within a real-world production context on Amazon Nimble Studio,” explains Jason Schleifer, FuzzyPixel Principal Creative Director. “We are big fans of the Blender Foundation’s mission to empower creators around the world, and enjoyed the opportunity to dive deep with this production.” For cultural authenticity, Zeas enlisted Ecuadorian musicians to develop the short’s soundscape. Local instruments are complemented by ambient environmental noise that adjusts based on the altitude of Mayu. Adding to the authenticity, Zeas’ mother voiced Mayu’s mother in the film and provided cultural guidance, while

“In so many ways, Picchu is a reflection of my own story, and how my mom encouraged me to serve and inspire others with my work.” — Writer-director Amaru Zeas

www.animationmagazine.net 34

TOC

august 22

TOC

Event Spotlight

Maiden Voyage: Directed by Amaru Zeas, Picchu is the FuzzyPixel’s first project to fully leverage Amazon Nimble Studio, which provides a creative pipeline on Amazon Web Services.

his father advised on architectural details. Beyond the project’s actual creation, the team was also tasked with developing collaboration techniques for connecting talent based in time zones ranging across the continental U.S. to Spain and New Zealand. A chat-based system on Discord helped the re-

mote team interact in real-time, while dailies were nearly always reviewed with cameras on. Since Amazon Nimble Studio was used as the project’s foundational infrastructure, artists were able to remain engaged in the creative as pipeline updates automatically ran in the background.

“Picchu is both a creative and technical achievement. From the embroidery details on Mayu’s poncho, to the native plants that change as she journeys, special attention was paid to honor the location in which it’s set.” — AWS Animation Producer Jennifer Dahlman

AWS Innovators Sessions

ou can learn more about the making of Picchu on Wednesday, Aug. 1O at SIGGRAPH in Vancouver. AWS will host a series titled AWS Innovators Sessions in Room 118, featuring a variety of AWS and partner technology demos and customer presentations. The event will include a fireside chat with director Tim Miller as well as a panel discussions with Animal Logic, Framestore, and Pixomondo, among others. Stop by the AWS SIGGRAPH booth (602) for details, or visit pages.awscloud.com/Siggraph-2022

The team rendered Picchu primarily using Amazon EC2 Spot Instances, which were spun up automatically as needed through Amazon Nimble Studio. Having the entire studio based in the cloud also made it easy for Schleifer and the pipeline team to update tools in the background, and push changes to artists’ virtual workstations without interruption. Updates could also be rolled back, providing flexibility for experimentation while maintaining overall pipeline stability. “Artists didn’t have to think about whether or not they had the latest plugins, scripts, or pipeline tools as the updates were managed for them,” says Schleifer. “They could focus completely on their craft, delivering the best work possible.” Zeas concludes, “As an artist, the biggest impact of using Amazon Nimble Studio is that I can start a virtual computer and have all the tools I need ready to go. I take pride in helping to develop technology that allows artists to work more efficiently. Our team always wants to raise the bar in terms of quality and complexity to make art in the best way possible. With Picchu, I think we did that, and we were able to tell a beautiful story dedicated to all the children around the world.” ◆ See amazon.com/nimble-studio for more info. At SIGGRAPH, visit AWS at Booth #602.

august 22 35

www.animationmagazine.net

TOC

Opportunities

How to Take Rejection Like a Pro! By Tom Sito

s you begin your career, it is important to know that part of being a professional is knowing how to handle rejection. It never feels good. You always remember the first time you were turned down. While still in college, I applied for a freelance job doing humorous illustrations for a top columnist for Newsweek magazine. When I arrived at his office, I said hello, and he said, “Do you do airbrush?” I said no. His face fell, clearly disappointed, and said,” Well, come in anyway.” I should have left then. The next hour he examined my samples, pausing to correct the spelling on my cartoon captions. Then he sent me off with a “Maybe next time, kid.” I felt awful. Since then, I’ve come to see rejections as just part of the game — like an out in baseball. You’ll do better next time up. Over the years, I’ve lost as many jobs as I have gotten. Remember a “No” doesn’t mean no forever. It means no this week. A month later conditions can be completely different. It’s not personal, so don’t take it personal. Take good critique, adjust your samples and move on. All artists deal with insecurity. It takes courage to create something, show it to people and

say, “Here. This is good. Give me money.” Some artists never get over their shyness about their work. Disney icon Glen Keane said, “We all feel like posers in this industry no matter how long you’ve been doing it … afraid someone is going to know you don’t really know what you’re doing and boot you out of there.” Michelangelo once lost a fresco competition to Leonardo. Goya lost a student competition to an artist nobody has heard of today. The judges said of his work, “crude and ugly colors.” The late Illustrator Edward Gorey said he kept one drawer in his desk filled with rejection letters, including some suggesting he seek therapy. In 1988 when we were completing The Little Mermaid, Charles M. Schulz, the creator of Charlie Brown and Snoopy, visited the Disney studio. He began his talk by recalling when he was young and first looking for work, he applied to Walt Disney. “I got a nice letter back that read, ‘No thank you, but we are only looking for GOOD artists.’” From the minute you start looking for work as an artist, you will meet people trying to discourage you. Glen Keane told me, “When I was 19, I Good Grief: Peanuts creator Charles M. Schulz’s drawings were initially rejected by many publications and Disney studios early on his career.

took a summer job at Filmation as a layout artist posing characters and designing backgrounds. By the end of the summer my supervisor called me into his office Tom Sito and asked me if I was going back to CalArts. I told him yes and he replied, ‘Good, cause if you weren’t, I’d fire you because you draw like a three-year old!’ I felt horrible that I had failed so miserably in this professional’s eyes. But somewhere deep inside, back when I was nine years old, my dad (cartoonist Bill Keane) planted a seed of confidence in me that couldn’t be extinguished even by such a brutal comment. Dad said, ‘Glen, I’m a cartoonist, you’re an artist.’ Then he gave me a copy of Burne Hogarth’s book Dynamic Anatomy. It was like being knighted. We all need those words of encouragement.“ That same guy rejected me for a job at Filmation, too, and years later not only did I become a director there, I actually got that guy’s office. When I began animating at Walt Disney, I had also applied to Don Bluth Productions, but I got a rejection letter signed by John Pomeroy. Later John and I laughed about it when we were working together on Pocahontas. I think it is important that at least once in your career you are told that you suck. It builds character. Because proving them wrong gives you a direct goal to achieve. And that makes the achieving all the sweeter. Success does not always go to the most talented or the most well connected. It always goes to the most stubborn. Don’t take no for an answer. Good luck and good hunting! Tom Sito is an animation veteran, historian and professor at USC. His credits include Who Framed Roger Rabbit, The Little Mermaid, Shrek, Aladdin, Beauty and the Beast, Prince of Egypt and The Lion King.

www.animationmagazine.net 36

TOC

august22

CMJ

MIPCOM-PagePrint_ANIMATIONMAGAZINE-213x276-Print.pdf

21/07/2022

11:02

TOC

Opportunities

august 22 37

www.animationmagazine.net

TOC

TOC Advertorial

A Decade of Celebrating the Animation Industry Cape Town International Animation Festival’s director Dianne Makings gives us a sneak peek of the 10th anniversary of the event.

What makes this festival special an you tell us a little bit and different from other similar about your event, which events? takes place Aug. 24-26? We are the only dedicated anDianne Makings: CTIAF celebrates its 10th Year in 2022, imation festival of this size on with a huge variety of animathe continent. Our main goal tion specific events over three is to introduce international days in Cape Town, South guests to our local talent and Africa. This forms part of the as a result we are very hands on larger event Fame Week Afin helping delegates connect. rica, which also includes the Dianne Makings inaugural MIP Africa. What is your take on the growIn the August edition CTIAF will have a ing animation scene and talent in S. Africa strong B2B focus for creatives, creative today? In 2022 we’ve seen an explosion of Triggerfish Academyproductions in SA and studios are Editing Animation growing rapidly. Our larger studios already have international reputations, but there are some smaller studios in the wings that are also creating waves in the industry. Some Testimonials from Exhibitors/Speakers:

What types of animation will be featured at the festival? We’re curating a collection of animation from 2d to stop motion; Africa is a massive continent with an incredible array of styles.

Ross Lelliot, The Hidden Hand Studio: “The Hidden Hand Studio attended the Cape Town Animation festival for the first time in 2021. We provided the animation for the festival that year. The festival was both lively and informative, we were introduced to many important people in the industry and the ability to network was invaluable. It was a wonderful experience all round and we would definitely love to attend more events in the future.”

Nathan Stanton-Story Trenches

producers and storytellers to connect with agents, distributors and producers inter- Simon Bromfield, Autodesk Territory Manested in co-productions and other creative ager: “We’ve been longtime supporters and partnerships. fans of the work created by our incredible Emerging creatives and issues of trans- artists here in South Africa. South Africa formation for the industry are top of mind. has a great pool of talent, and together with We have a strong focus on what companies our software they have been able to create can do to improve their inclusion strategies amazing vfx and animation.” and a strong focus on female creators of color. There are also multiple opportunities to pitch projects one-on-one as well as a larger pitching competition with a panel of international judges. Attendees can enjoy screenings, workshops, dedicated networking sessions and a program of creative, producer and technical focused keynotes from Netflix, DNEG and Autodesk. Attendees Yasaman Ford-Script Writing can also meet with other industry professionals at the CTIAF Pavilion.

chance for us to get to know and work with people from all over the world.”

Triggerfish Studio: “Triggerfish has attended every instance of CTIAF. We’ve found the festival energizing, educational, and a terrific networking opportunity. It’s also been a great way to get international people to visit Cape Town, and has been a good

Jeanie Varty, Theme Artist for 2022: “For me, the festival was the very first time I got to dip my toes into the wider animation industry. I had been selected for a student short film and it was at this festival that I got to meet and mingle with peers, expand my scope of interest in the animation world and get the opportunity to learn from and meet our local and international masters. For me, the festival has become an annual celebration of growth, a marker in my journey as a filmmaker and the space where I can re-connect with old friends and meet new colleagues.” Kaydee & Andre de Villiers, Ferin Post Production and Feral Animation: “We’ve found the CTIAF festivals to be extremely beneficial in making new contacts and strengthening our connections with existing studios and artists. We also thoroughly enjoy the speakers. It’s also a great place to meet the students and upcoming talent in industry who have a passion for animation and film.” For more info, visit ctiaf.com

www.animationmagazine.net 38

TOC

august 22

TOC Advertorial

august 22 39

www.animationmagazine.net

TOC

VFX VFX

TOC

Terrific and Thrilling at 30! Sony Pictures Imageworks celebrates three decades of stunning visual effects, genre-bending animation and innovative technologies.

t’s hard to believe that the innovative, award-winning VFX studio we all know and admire as Sony Pictures Imageworks began its life as a small previs unit housed in the former TriStar building in Culver City. Celebrating three decades of creating state-of-the-art visual effects for features and producing animation for sister company Sony Pictures Animation, SPI continues to raise the bar with each project — whether it’s the revolutionary visuals of live-action movies like Men in Black or Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness or the innovative animation of Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, The Mitchells vs, the Machines and this year’s The Sea Beast. With over 1,200 employees in Los Angeles and Vancouver, the studio continues to push the visual envelope with one eye-popping feature after another. We asked some of the key creative forces at the studio to tell us about some of their favorite moments from their SPI careers and what they think makes the studio stand out in the VFX landscape today. Here is what they told us:

Michelle Grady

Executive Vice President, General Manager “My favorite memory is the day when Peter Ramsey, one of the directors on Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, came to the studio with his Oscar and each and every one of our crew (from finance to FX, from PAs to Producers) got the opportunity to have their picture taken with it. It was so generous and just such a confirmation that it really does take a team to do what we do. What makes Imageworks standout is our ability to confidently and consistently deliver inspiring visuals in both CG Features and live-action VFX. Who else does that at the level of this team?”

Mandy Tankenson

Senior VP, Head of Production “My favorite times are the days we quickly launch into the projects, when we are bringing together the teams and starting the collaboration with our internal crew and the filmmakers. It’s this time of looking at artwork and thinking about all of the unique and innovative ways we can create something new and beautiful that invigorates me. Production in various stages are all fantastic, but I do love the beginning moments. Being a people person, getting to be together (in the same space or virtually) energizes me, and that time of embarking on a new journey reminds me of how lucky I am to work with such talented, smart and creative people. What makes Imageworks special is the people. I genuinely love what I do and a big reason for this is the crew we get to work with. Everyone is collaborating to make the best imagery and share their knowledge and ideas.”

Michael Ford

Chief Technology Officer “My favorite memories have always been the lights dimming in a theater to watch what our teams have been working on after a project is complete. There is something about seeing your colleagues’ hard work on screen that makes me think how lucky we are to get to do this. It also motivates me to keep pursuing new ways to improve it. What makes Imageworks stand out is the diversity of the work that we do each year. We have multiple VFX and animated feature films running at the same time, all with different looks and unique filmmaking challenges. I’ve always been thrilled with our ability to do a film like Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse and have a live-action Spider-Man film running on the same pipeline, at the same time. It is a testament to the mix of talented people and ground breaking technology that have made this place so successful over the last 30 years.”

Andrea Pace

Exec Director of Editorial, Production Services & Resources “My favorite memory from my years at Imageworks was when I was an overnight Production Services Technician (PST) on Big Fish. Victoria Alonso was the producer and she got Tim Burton’s autograph for me! Imageworks stands out because of all of the different looks we can produce in both animated and VFX projects.” www.animationmagazine.net 40

TOC

august 22

TOC

VFX VFX

Alan Hawkins

Animation Supervisor “What I love most about Imageworks and Sony Pictures Animation is that we have such an extreme range of looks, from Hotel Transylvania to Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse to photoreal VFX and so many in between. I am happy knowing that whatever project is next, it will look drastically different from the last.”

Nicola Lavender

VFX Supervisor “My favorite memory at Imageworks has to be the beach day we did on Surf’s Up. We got to try out surfing, play games on the beach and even had Rob Machado join us! What makes Imageworks stand out is the people, team spirit and collaboration. Every show has its ups and downs but with the right team anything is achievable.”

Cottalango Leon

Software Architect “My favorite memory is standing on the Academy stage in 2016, accepting the Sci-Tech Award for the Itview display and review tool. Next favorite is seeing some of the early visuals coming from the Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse team for the first time and immediately thinking that this is going to be big. What makes Imageworks stand out is the people and culture. I have spent more than half my lifetime at Imageworks and I strongly believe it’s the culture that draws the best and brightest from all over the world and has them stay there for so long.”

Chris Waegner

VFX Supervisor “Award-winning visuals and innovation is the heart of Imageworks. Our creative team’s ability to inspire, collaborate, and push the boundaries of technology has made Imageworks a leader in both the visual effects and animation industries.”

Carey A. Smith

VFX Producer “There is so much to draw from in my last 20+ years at Imageworks. Some highlights are the limo ride and red carpet experience for the Spider-Man 2 Oscar win with Scott Stokdyk, John Dykstra, Lydia Bottegoni and Jenny Fulle. Working on Men in Black 3 with Joyce Cox, Eric Scott, Jay Redd and Ken Ralston. Every day was a pleasure. We had more fun than we should have — it was truly collaborative and fantastic. Our holiday lunch from Bay Cities Deli for The Mitchells vs. the Machines with Kurt Albrecht and Mike Rianda — the last big holiday buffet we had before the 2020 pandemic. It was such a delicious lunch and bonding moment Every single moment with Michelle Murdocca, who taught me so much. Every animation review with Genndy Tartakovsky and Alan Hawkins. Dancing in my office with Gen West and Keiko to Pitch Perfect just to lighten the day. Mike Lasker, who always did something thoughtful just when I needed it. Every movie carries fond memories for me, it’s why I am here, why I stay. I learn, I teach, I fail, I succeed, I grow, and I stumble, but always with the love and support of my Imageworks Team. It’s the people who stick with me — we have exceptional people from top down. “I think Imageworks is exceptional and stands out because of our inability to fail. Give us the biggest movie, the quickest deadline, the most challenging budget or aesthetic. We deliver on all fronts, we never fail. We adapt, we pitch in, we unite, we apply ourselves, we ask the best of people, we try and bring out the best in people. No movie is too big, too challenging, too quick. Our team wouldn’t let that happen. We are strong and resilient because of who we are, who sits in the seats, who shows up day after day, year after year.”

Jerome Chen

Senior VFX Supervisor “In the summer of 1992, I heard Sony was starting a visual effects unit. I forced my way into an interview and met a handful of people working out of a conference room in the TriStar Building on the Culver City lot. They had enthusiasm and passion that was infectious. ‘m not even sure I had a real job offer, but I stayed and worked with them. Those people have moved on, but the standard for creative excellence and passion in doing the work still lives here. That’s why I never left.”

#imageworksstrong august 22

www.animationmagazine.net

TOC

VFX VFX

TOC

It’s Hammer Time, Again! VFX supervisor Jake Morrison takes us behind the scenes of the wild visuals of this summer’s Marvel extravaganza Thor: Love and Thunder. By Trevor Hogg

fter achieving box office and comedic success with Thor: Ragnarok, Kiwi filmmaker Taika Waititi returns with Thor: Love and Thunder, which ups the ante of action mayhem. In an effort to prevent the systematic murder of deities by a former worshipper, the Norse God of Thunder reteams with an ex-girlfriend. The cast of Chris Hemsworth, Natalie Portman, Christian Bale, Tessa Thompson, Russell Crowe, Jamie Alexander, Chris Pratt, Dave Bautista, Karen Gillan and Waititi himself was supported by Marvel Studios’ VFX supervisor Jake Morrison, who has been involved with MCU franchise ever since the original solo outing. Overall, 25 vendors situated in Italy, U.K., Canada, United States, Australia and New Zealand were responsible for producing 2200 visual effects shots. “You could say that the sun never sets on the Thor: Love and Thunder empire,” says Morrison. “You couldn’t go and see everybody [because of the pandemic], but it felt like a far more personal experience to do the whole thing through Zoom. For example, when saying our goodbyes and thank yous to Method Studios, it was heart-wrenching as we had over 300 people on Zoom. My take on the whole thing is I try to make sure the experience is as personal as possible so the notes go all the way down. If you want to be able to

convince people that it’s worth the work to actually stay [for a couple of extra hours] and make the shots better, the personal side of it becomes more important.”

Retaining Logic Within the Madness Morrison points out that even the film’s outrageous scenes, like giant goats pulling a flying Asgardian boat, had to be grounded with a

sense of logic. “I’m a big fan of superhero mechanics,” admits Morrison. “What I don’t want is a movie where the rules don’t make any sense. I thought, ‘What if we put Stormbreaker, which we know can summon Bifrost, front and center?’ We established that the boats can fly earlier when we see the Asgard tourist scenes. We hook up the goats in the front because we need a powerful force of compulsion. We get this

“Imagine the ability to shoot one actor doing one thing with multiple lighting passes and splitting them all out after the fact. Taika wanted us to have infinite control. We talked about magnesium flares in the air and that whole travel arc with long shadows.” — VFX supervisor Jake Morrison

www.animationmagazine.net 42

TOC

august 22

TOC

VFX VFX

Prosthetics Power: The VFX team initially planned to augment the deterioration of Gorr the God Butcher (portrayed by Christian Bale) with heavy CG effects, but decided against it after performing LightStage scans.

mad spectacle of this beam of Bifrost creating a physical surface for the goats to run on and you have sprays of Bifrost crystal kicking off of their impacts. Why don’t we have Bifrost Bridge left behind everywhere all of the time? I’ll tell you why: The keel of the boat is lower than the Bifrost bridge and carves through it.” Along with having to deal with the reappearance of Jane Foster (Natalie Portman), Thor has to come to terms with his ex-girlfriend forging an intimate relationship with his former hammer, Mjølnir. “The great thing about Taika’s comedy is that it’s relatable,” notes Morrison. “Korg obviously serves as a foil for all of that when he says, ‘Bro, it must be hard to see your ex-girlfriend with your ex-hammer getting on so well.’ It’s the thing your friend would say that would just destroy you!” The most amount of time went into animating the arrival of Thor’s jealous axe Stormbreaker during the New Asgard town meeting. “I’ve animated a lot of things over the years and this is probably the least expression that I’ve been given to work with, because what does an axe do? It floats and turns menacing, which means you’ve got two things to play with: speed and turning ratio. Occasionally we put lightning in, such as when Thor has Zeus’s Thunderbolt and goes, ‘This is the army! It’s sleek and beautiful.’ Then you look outside and Stormbreaker is causing the whole boat to pitch up and down.” In Thor: Ragnarok, Hela shattered the Mjølnir which has a dramatic payoff in Thor: Love and Thunder when Jane Foster transforms into The Mighty Thor as she can assemble and disassemble the hammer at will. “There are a lot of hammer-related gags that you can do, and at a certain point there aren’t,” observes Morrison. “This was a new lease on

life for me in terms of visual storytelling. During the New Asgard battle, Thor fires the hammer and the audience is expecting to see a full Mjölnir hammer strike like we have seen in all of the other pictures — but then there is a frontal shot where the whole thing breaks apart and each of the individual pieces turn into hunter and seeker missiles and go through and — Pop! Pop! Pop! — kill all of the shadow creatures that the Asgardians are fighting.” “The trouble is you can’t stop there,” he adds. “Every single battle you have to do different gags. You get cool beats like on the Moon of Shame when Thor fires out all of the hammer pieces and that last one is a spikey bit that you could use as a dagger that she shoves into the shadow creature’s head, all of the pieces come back and explode its brain. That’s fun!” A disillusioned worshipper known as Gorr the God Butcher serves as the antagonist and gradually physically deteriorates due to his relationship with the Necrosword. “At the beginning we were going to have him be fully CG at a certain point,” reveals Morrison. “We did LightStage scans with Christian Bale and had a lot of different development work where whole chunks of his face were missing and you could see the necrosis taking place.” However, with Gorr being so much in the picture, the CG approach was decided to be too risky when it came to retaining the performance of Bale. “We gradually steered back towards a 100 percent prosthetic solution with the teeth and scars,” says the supervisor. One of the film’s dramatic scenes involves the sidekick rock creature Korg getting killed by Zeus’s Thunderbolt. “Korg is like a technical animation exercise. It’s hard to make him look like a bunch of rocks that are moving as a coherent person but never squashing and stretching.”

august 22

Long Shadows and Majestic Flairs As for groundbreaking visual effects, Morrison singles out the Moon of Shame sequence where color gives way to a black and white lunar environment. “I wanted to make a bump up on the technology used for the Valkyrie flashback in Thor: Ragnarok and try to put it in something that wasn’t slow motion,” explains Morrison. “Imagine the ability to shoot one actor doing one thing with multiple lighting passes and splitting them all out after the fact. Taika wanted us to have infinite control. We talked about magnesium flares in the air and that whole travel arc with long shadows. I ended up trying to reverse engineer a way to be able to control that because he likes to shoot continuously as well.” Six different lighting stations were set up around the circular moon base. “Each of the individual pieces was shot with a static light,” recalls the VFX supe. “Because lighting is additive if you do it in the right color space you can literally add any light that you want as you need it. You don’t have to build a CG version of the actor and do a fake version where the skin and cloth response won’t be as good. You actually have that light. It’s a level up way of shooting an action sequence and making it feel, even for something as crazy as this, more honest. It was a huge challenge to pull all of the required ingredients together between all of the different departments, lighting, camera, editorial and of course our VFX vendors that made it all sing. To break the mold with something as innovative as this is terrifying but also exhilarating when you finally see the results.” ◆ Marvel’s Thor: Love and Thunder is currently playing in theaters worldwide through Walt Disney Pictures.

www.animationmagazine.net

TOC

VFX VFX

TOC

Tech Reviews World Creator 3

orld Creator, developed by BiteTheBytes, came from modest means about a decade ago and evolved into a plugin for Unity, and shortly after into a standalone product sitting on top of the Unity engine. This year the third reincarnation of World Creator was released, untethering itself from Unity exclusively and growing into its own, GPU-accelerated, real-time landscape generator — with numerous features to help you design the landscapes to your liking. The power of World Creator is not just in the real-time rendering, because what is the point of rendering something that doesn’t look good? No, the power is in its procedural tools to allow you to quickly sculpt and design your world. You can craft your own landscape using different filters like ridges, craters, terrace, rocky surfaces, choose from template patterns of things like canyons or volcanos, or use real-world locations through MapTiler. In addition, you can mix all of those together — And if that weren’t enough, you can top it off with erosion and sediment systems, all in real time. And that’s just the surface What is a terrain without color and shading? World Creator utilizes Substance 3D shaders in the .sbsar format, so you can dig in and modify the shaders within World Creator itself. Or you can utilize a number of maps like albedo, normal, ambient occlusion, displacement and roughness. Then, you can mix these with gradients or rule-based filters driven by the features of the terrain — slope, height, cavity, angles, edges, noise … just to name a few. And now with your terrain looking pretty, you can render it using all the things: ray-tracing, global illumination, clouds, atmospheric scattering, fog, God rays, water. Literally, all the things. In real time. You can also export your terrain to any number of formats to be used in any 3D package you would like: Unity (naturally) and Unreal 4 (support for 5 is in the works), Maya, Max, Clarisse, Houdini. There are a few things missing in this build — but they have been announced for future builds: unlimited terrain, custom object imports (like trees and foliage), camera animation, procedural rivers, thermal erosion, a terrain wizard to build up terrains quickly and easily,

by Todd Sheridan Perry

and a bunch more filters. I did do a review of World Creator 2 a few years ago, but please understand that this is a pretty substantial rebuild. The third release has a higher price tag than the previous one; the price for a hobbyist is $349 to buy, and $689 for pros. You could also rent annually for half that per year. If you need environments, the investment shouldn’t even be a thing. Website: world-creator.com Annual Price: $169 (individual); $349 (small co.); $1,289 (large co.)

RealityScan

or a long time, RealityCapture has been my go-to software for photogrammetry, even before they were acquired by Epic Games. So when I received notification of an iOS app from the same team that would allow for scanning from your device, I immediately jumped on the Beta. And it was a good thing that I responded. The 10,000 open slots were filled within a few hours after the mail was sent. Even in its Beta stage, RealityScan is robust and effective. The interface is clean and straightforward and the steps are clear. You begin by holding down the red “take picture” button. Then you move around the object you are scanning, taking picture after picture to get enough coverage for the photogrammetry scan. This is the normal process for photogrammetry, but what’s cool about RealityScan is that it utilizes the AR in your device to leave your snapshots floating in space, as seen through the iPhone. You get to see exactly how much coverage you have around the object, and, in turn, how much more you need to cover. In the process, the app begins to show you voxels representing the volume of your object. From there, you can adjust the size of your scanning volume to tell the app what to cull and what to calculate. After the app aligns the images, the data is sent to the cloud where the model is calculated utilizing the same algorithms that power the full version of RealityCapture. When the model is complete, it is sent to your SketchFab account for you to accept and publish. The results are really clean, especially if you provide enough pictures. And the interactive nature of the process is actually pretty fun. It’s definitely set up for scanning objects rather than, say, environments. I’m a bit surprised that it doesn’t utilize the LIDAR camera in the iOS devices to help in the calculations. RealityCapture definitely can use multiple sources of data for its model solves. That said, I am turned off by the fact that your mod-

els appear to be trapped in the Epic ecosystem — which is great if you plan to keep everything in Unreal Engine, but not so much if you are using other 3D software. Sure, you could import your Sketchfab model into Unreal using the plugin, and then export it as an FBX. But it certainly would be more convenient if you could download directly from Sketchfab. I suppose I could get over that in time. I look forward to the release version of RealityScan, too. I would have waited on a review until then, but I was so excited about it, that I thought the photogrammetry community ought to be looking forward to it as well. Website: capturingreality.com

Foundry’s Flix 6.4

couple of years ago, I reviewed Foundry’s Flix 6.2, the collaborative animatic software which connects the animatic source software (mostly likely Photoshop or Storyboard Pro) to the editing software (Avid or Premiere) and acts as a hub for creative discussions between the director and the artists. The 6.4 version of the product has been recently released, and it offers some new features to speed things up, make it more efficient and be more flexible. For me, the coolest features are about the interconnectivity between the different software in the workflow: the glue that holds things together. In 6.4, that glue is stronger between Storyboard Pro, Flix and Avid with camera keyframes stored inside of the AAF files.

Basically, camera moves from Storyboard Pro get transferred over to Flix, which then migrate to Avid through the AAF file. However, with this new version, the editor can make modifications to that camera, which can then continued on page 45

www.animationmagazine.net 44

TOC

august 22

be sent back to Flix for review, and then again back to Storyboard Pro so that the boards can be updated if necessary. Flix 6.4 has also updated support for Photoshop 2022, which augments the already- powerful connection between the two programs through a menu of plugins for pushing and pulling artwork back and forth. In addition, Flix 6.4 has updated additional aspect ratios for different types of displays and media from a square (i.e. Instagram) format of 1.0 to 2.2 for widescreen stuff. It may sound like a minor, not-too-sexy feature, but it’s certainly important to those who need it. The remaining features are, in actuality, the more robust ones — but they focus more on the efficiency of Flix and its workflow. Transferring data back and forth between the software can be time consuming and messy. But, the Foundry has seen speed improvements with a revamped Transfer Utility that imports batches of art panels up to 23% faster than the last release. The UI also has had a makeover so you can visually track the progress of the import. The transfers now happen in the background, so you can move on to other tasks in the project — or even go to a different project without disrupting the transfer. Importing into Flix from Storyboard Pro is now cleaner through the support of .SBPZ packaged projects, which contains the .SBOARD files you previously imported. Upon import, you can select which board you want — but on the server, those files live inside the package. This makes not only for cleaner drives, but also fewer errors during migration or archiving. These are definitely some worthwhile features to consider upgrading — or implementing if your next project is storyboard-heavy, whether it’s a fully animated work or an VFX-heavy short, TV show or movie. Website: foundry.com/products/flix Price: On Enquiry

HP’s Z8 G4 Workstation

his review may seem a little late given that HP pushed out its Z8 G4 workstation back in 2019. However, not only does a pandemic change our perception of time, but I’m reviewing this product in comparison to my own Z820 workstation which has served me since 2013. So, three years isn’t “old” at all. Let’s take a look at this system. The cabinet is pretty low-profile at 17”x22”x8.5” with a sleek, unassuming exterior. The front panel sports a couple USB 3 ports, two more USB-C, an SD card slot and a mini-headphone jack for good measure. The back has six more USB 3s, four network ports (!), a couple more mini jacks for audio in and out. Also, the power supply is easily swappable without even cracking open the system. This is super handy, especially if your power needs change. Power supplies are available in 1125W, 1450W and 1700W flavors. But the outside isn’t the important thing, right? I always love HP’s design of its workstation interiors. Everything is toolless, clean and efficient. And while it all

TOC

fits tightly together, the combination of phase change cooling for the CPUs and the fans and venting keep everything running pretty cool, avoiding throttling. This means it’s generally quiet — although I’ve certainly pushed it far enough for the fans to kick into high gear. Finally, when you pull out the modular covers, you reveal the guts. HP fitted me up with dual procs: Xeon Gold 62246R @ 3.4Ghz. Along with 128 GB of RAM. Which is pretty moderate considering that you can push it up to 3TB (with the right corresponding dual CPUs). I also have a 1TB system drive and additional 4TB SATA — a mere fraction of the 56TB potential that you can fit inside. Now, this would be quite enough for most of my visual effects needs (although I would probably take the RAM to at least 256GB for Houdini stuff). However, it doesn’t end there. The addition of the NVIDIA RTX A6000 with 48GB takes the already powerful workstation and ratchets it up to ludicrous speed — especially with GPU accelerated situations like Unreal, Premiere Pro, Nuke, Redshift, V-Ray — really, whatever you might be using. On a show I am currently supervising, I fired up the Z8 for previzing a bunch of complicated scenes in Unreal, animating eight Metahumans with hair using ray tracing and GI. I’m not sure I could have pushed the scenes that far without the power underneath the hood of this monster. HP has been putting a lot of emphasis on their powerful line of ZBook mobile workstations, and I do look forward to HP’s next iteration of desktop. Website: hp.com Price: Starts at $3,907

Blackmagic Design’s DaVinci Resolve 18

t doesn’t look like a post-COVID post world will be returning to a not-from-home type scenario. Something that the folks at Blackmagic might agree with me on. I say this because Resolve 18 (Beta 5 as of this writing), sports tools for cloud collaboration between artists. Project libraries are hosted on a DaVinci Resolve Project Server, and then the team of artists, including the editor, colorist, VFX artists and audio guys, are all logged in — and can access the same project. All of this comes with specialized tools to remap file paths and to stream your viewer display to a remote computer or reference grading monitor. This is one of the numerous features in Resolve 18, and probably the one that changes the paradigm the most. I’m really excited about the new proxy workflow. In earlier versions, making proxies would create a file for

august 22

VFX VFX

the master clips, but nothing would make sense if you tried to look at those files on the hard drive. Resolve would see it, but it didn’t make sense in human terms. In my case, I was looking at migrating a Premiere Pro edit to Resolve and I wanted to repurpose the proxies that had already been generated in Premiere. This new workflow is now more in line with that. Easy to read external proxy files which can be easily migrated, or even generated by other programs and later linked in Resolve. There are a number of tools that are driven by the DaVinci Neural Engine — Blackmagic’s machine learning system (which is supported in the Apple M1 Macs). The object mask tool recognizes differences in selected objects in the scene, and then can track those objects through the scene. This includes people. It doesn’t work perfectly in all situations, but definitely can be used in the majority of cases. You also have an AIbased scaling algorithm. A complement to the people-recognizing mask is a face-recognizing tool to help in beauty work. Also, removing dead pixels, object removing and patching frames are augmented by the Neural Engine — including automatic corrective grading to help blend the patches. Additionally, the color module now has a Mocha-like track warping tool to track and replace non-rigid surfaces like shirts or skin. I’ve only touched on the new tools. And I haven’t even mentioned features in the Edit, Fusion or Fairlight modules. There are enhanced subtitles, accelerated transitions, GPU-accelerated paint and denoising tools, binaural rendering, audio placement in 3D space, mixing up to 2,000 audio tracks in real time, OFlow speed changes. There are just so many features!

I have to add that Resolve 18 runs blazingly fast with 8K footage on the HP Z8 G4 with an NVIDIA A6000 — mentioned in the previous review. A lot of these advanced features are only in the Studio version — not that the free version of Resolve isn’t incredibly powerful. But if you want it all, you may have to pony up the ridiculously low cost of $295. I mean — really! You might spend more on a single plugin for de-noising! Website: blackmagicdesign.com Price: $295 Todd Sheridan Perry is an award-winning VFX supervisor and digital artist whose credits include Black Panther, Avengers: Age of Ultron, The Christmas Chronicles and Three Busy Debras. You can reach him at todd@teaspoonvfx.com.

www.animationmagazine.net

TOC

VFX Shorts

Heart Like a Wheel Sander Joon chats with us about his award-winning new short Sierra.

stonian animation writer and director Sander Joon is often inspired by specific sports. His new surreal short Sierra, which won the Best of the Fest prize at Palm Springs ShortFest earlier this year, centers on a racing-obsessed father who turns his kid into a tire! “My father Heikki Joon actually did a blackand-white 16mm animated film back in 1980 about a car race,” recalls Joon. “He was 16 at the time, and he animated it on his bathroom floor using model cars. I had always wanted to use this piece in my work. While developing the story for Sierra, it naturally evolved to be about our relationship — how we grew apart, but found a common ground. The short also hints at the Ford Sierra which was kind of like a family relic, as it was given to whoever had just got their driver’s license. I was the last in a row, but since we lived in the capital I rarely drove — so it ended up collecting rust. Our Sierra was finally stolen by some very determined thieves, since it didn’t start when I last tried to drive it!” Joon began sketching the short’s rally drives about five years ago, and the idea for the short started to take shape in 2019 when funding was secured. “Our primary tool for 3D animation was Maya and for everything 2D we used Krita. In total, we had about eight people on our team. I had three animators who all came and went on different periods. At first, I panicked about giving up control but in the end, I’m very happy to admit they ended up delivering much more than I expected!”

graphics of that era are so pleasing to study and reference. From early 3D animation tests, I was pretty sure that this sort of flat color rendering would be the look for the film. Also, it opened up possibilities to trick the perspective and keep the render times short — which was a win-win!” During Sierra’s development, Joon’s biggest challenge was to find a nice balance between the narrative and the surreal scenes. “I gave my best to make the playful scenes support the overall message,” he says. “Coming up with a final scene to tie it all together was also a huge challenge. During the production, the biggest challenge was to keep everything on track and have shots prepared for animators at all times.” He also mentions that the biggest lesson he learned was to trust your team. “I can guarantee that well-chosen partners will bring something unexpected and fresh to your project.” Joon says he’s also quite pleased with the short’s soundscape. “The raw sounds of flora and fauna mixed with loud engines from Matis Rei and the nostalgic tunes from Misha Panfilov created a perfect symphony,” he notes. “While writing the story, I was listening to

Bold and Simple Sierra’s visual style inspired by the 1980s Group B rally cars. “The bold color schemes and simple

Sander Joon

Panfilov’s album Heli Maagia on repeat. When I was searching for the composer for the film, I asked the maestro if he’d be interested to compose for the short. He jumped right in and went way beyond my expectations. I’m thrilled to announce that the soundtrack will have an official vinyl release!” Looking back at his earliest animation experiences, Joon says he somehow discovered tools for making gifs even before he had access to the internet. “When I was around 13, I got a chance to animate e-cards in Flash and I was surprised to get paid for it,” he tell us. “With some leaps, I haven’t stopped working in animation since!” “I’m personally very excited about the rapid development of free tools for animation,” he adds. “The quality of work coming from independent Blender users is awe-inspiring. This sort of availability opens up many possibilities for talented indie animators. In general, I’m happy that indie animation is breaking through on mainstream platforms. Every year we see more people realizing that animation is not merely a medium for family-friendly films.” Finally, what does he hope audiences will take away from his memorable short? “I designed Sierra to be Raised to ambivalent enough for audiWin: A ences to fill in the key mofather’s ments with their own ideas,” obsession he admits. “Hence, I’m dewith car lighted to hear different exracing turns planations for the film. I hope his son into the audiences will find their a tire in own meaning to what hapSander Joon’s pens in the film. I’ve been award-win- thinking that the film could ning short, actually be translated to any Sierra. form or scale of expectations by an individual!” ◆

www.animationmagazine.net 46

TOC

august 22

TOC

VFX Shorts

DIA.EU

EUROPEAN CO-PRODUCTION FORUM FOR ANIMATION TV SERIES

august 22

www.animationmagazine.net

TOC

WWW.CARTOON-ME

TOC

A D ay I n T he L ife Aidan Martin, a brilliant animation supervisor who has been with Wētā FX for 18 years, may be the perfect SIGGRAPH issue subject! Specializing in creating facial performances, his many impressive credits include The Umbrella Academy, The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, War for the Planet of the Apes and Avengers: Endgame. Here he shares some snapshots for a typical date with us: The 9 a.m. leads stand up meeting requires lots of tea.

1 One WFH perk is that I can have a fully loaded breakfast while I check emails and teams chats, doing the general check in with artists before the calendar fills up.

6 a.m., every day! I’m either here or at the gym. I’ve found that the longer I do this, the more important it is to find a physical activity you enjoy and can stick to.

4 Sketching on an iPad. It’s important to keep drawing as much as possible.

10:55 a.m.: Fresh pot of tea. And yes, before you ask, I do put the milk in the teapot... I’m that kind of monster!

It’s Friday, so I’m meeting the brains trust for lunch. I had the chicken caesar.

In the afternoon I have some time to set some keys, QC a puppet and catch up with animators.

Work is done, time to pester my family while they still tolerate my intrusion on whatever obscure anime I seemed to have interrupted.

One of Aidan’s many friends/creations, Pogo from The Umbrella Academy.

48 www.animationmagazine.net

TOC

august 22

TOC

A D ay I n T he L ife

AFM22 ®

SANTA MONICA | NOV. 1-6 A MERICAN F ILM M ARKET . COM | B RINGING F ILM T O L IFE

august 22

www.animationmagazine.net

TOC

A D ay I n T he L ife

www.animationmagazine.net

TOC

august 22

Animation Magazine Special Siggraph Issue #322

Articles inside

A Day in the Life of

Heart Like a Wheel

Tech Reviews

It’s Hammer Time, Again

Three Decades of Thrilling Images

How to Take Rejection Like a Pro

A Rewarding Journey

SIGGRAPH: Spotlight on the 2022 Prize Winners

The Visual Pulse of the Machine

Prehistoric Perfection

A Family Affair

Meet That Designing Wascally Wabbit

One Shell of a Good Time

Hypnotic History

Animation Planner August

Super Pooches to the Rescue

A Fortunate Girl