Showreel Breakdown

Bertie Crisp.

The film took roughly ninety shots of CG “cartoon” landscapes and sets modelled, textured, lit, rendered and composited myself. Still my most challenging piece of VFX work and the project that gives me the most individual pride due to my constant involvement in the project.

The showreel begins with the concept art for the exterior of the main caravan in the film. I modelled the caravan using the production design specifications and the texturing was designed by both myself and the film's director. Multiple passes had to be rendered out for each block of caravans as the camera pulls out. I rendered shadow, occlusion for the main block, toon lines and colour. I built, textured, lit and rendered all objects in the scene with the exception of the rollercoaster which was built by a first year NFTS student under my general supervision. As with all shots in the film the camera movement and angle was designed by myself and the director. Throughout the film we formed a strong ability to collaborate quickly, effectively and with enthusiasm on the cinematography of each shot.

The next shot is of the protagonists' living room and you can see cluttered and dingy were important styling terms throughout the caravan. I had a brilliantly creative but challenging time creating props that could be scattered throughout their world. As with all other shots for this film, the props and set were modelled, textured, lit and rendered by myself. You can see the toon lines quite prominently when the living room cycles through a quick breakdown of the passes. The toon lines were extremely difficult to manage on such a large project, especially as I hadn't worked with them before this project. To avoid lengthy render times I started to render the lightest possible toon line pass from Maya and would then manipulate the alpha in nuke extensively. It gave the lines an extremely distinctive look and at about a tenth the render time. The sheer size of this project pushed me to develop solutions to a number problems to match the needs of the director.

The scene following is a simple exterior shot of the two main caravans. The only concept art I had for this sequence was from the film's storyboards but together with the director and production designer we created multiple previs versions to design the look. The final version can be seen at the end of the breakdown. Some of the texturing such as the gas canisters behind the sleeping cat figure at the end of the shot were textured in Mudbox. I found this easier at times and also enjoyed the challenge of putting a new software to practical use.

Next is the protagonists' bedroom, again this shot was a really successful and enjoyable collaboration between myself, the director and the production designer and allowed for some fun and ridiculous details to be modelled and textured such as hangers, postcards, a chicken egg timer and pizza boxes under the bed.

The kittens' bedroom in the caravan next door. Fairly simple room not requiring much except a few children's toys. However this shot is one of the best looking integrations between my CG and the director's 2D animation in the film.

The neighbour's hallway as Bertie steals one of the kittens. Again a simple room but a very fun bit of cartoon texturing in the first aid box on the wall.

Once again, the protagonists' living room, this time after the kitten, which you just saw being stolen, has created havoc in the caravan. The most interesting and enjoyable set to model and texture and the evening lighting blends the CG with the shadowed 2D characters well.

The caravan rolls down the hill. I supervised the speed and movement of the animation for the caravan and the destroyed fence whilst working on other shots, however the camera positions were again developed between the Director and myself.

Flesh Art.

I created two CG shots in the film, both revolving around one of the Zombie antagonists.

Once the roto artist had successfully removed the Zombie's legs from the footage I began modelling, texturing and lighting the skin of the Zombie's waist region to match the facial make-up. Then I had to quickly learn rigging skills to match the movement of the Zombie creature. Despite the very short time constraint for it's development I believe the shot works well and was happy to have contributed to it's successful screening at Fright Fest.

Daniel Radley-Bennett