Phil Willis

Phil Willis talks to the Process Diary

Kenny Roy starts work on The Little Painter

Mar 15th

Posted by Phil Willis in Training

2 comments

How do you get your short animated film off to a flying start?

Well, if you’re Kenny Roy, you kick off with a 24 hour animation marathon broadcast live on the internet.

Kenny Roy is not only an animator, but also a teacher at Animation Mentor and the director of Arconyx Animation Studios based in Los Angeles.

I caught up with Kenny shortly after he completed his 24-hour non-stop animation session.

Animation Ideas: So tell us a little bit about your short film?

Kenny Roy: It’s my first personal short in over six years, so it’s about time! We did some shorts for clients as a company but nothing with the amount of development going into The Little Painter.

I’m very proud of my film, even in it’s early stages. The story is charming, I worked very hard on the writing, I’m taking my time developing the characters, it feels like everything is going very smoothly.

In a lot of ways, running a studio for these past 5 years has made me crave a project like The Little Painter even more and I’m excited to be underway!

AI: You mentioned the idea came to you in a dream. Did it come as a fully-formed idea, or just the kernel of the story?

KR: It was literally like being in a theater and watching it on screen. The entire story, beginning to end, was there. I am ALWAYS in my own skin in my dreams, looking out of my eyes. I’m never third person or a disembodied observer, so it was kind of intense.

When I woke up I couldn’t believe it and I wrote it down as fast as I could. Good thing too, like all dreams it faded fast but I had my notes to jog my memory.

AI: What was it like animating for 24 hours straight?

KR: Another intense experience! I’ve pulled all-nighters before, but there’s something different about doing a shot start-to-finish in that time frame. I think it was much harder because I wanted to do a great job firstly because it’s a shot in my film and secondly there were on average 406 people watching the whole 24 hours! I wanted to make people see how passionate I am about my film.

The worst stint was 3-6am. You get very slap-happy, and you get cold. That’s when I put on my hat and gloves.

AI: What was the strangest thing that happened during the live animation marathon?

KR: When I saw that the total had shot up to $7,000 on my kickstarter page, I spit my chicken soup all over my wacom! Everyone on the Livestream saw. Sonya had to bring me some windex, lol.

AI: How did you feel about raising half your short film budget in a single day?

KR: That exceeded my expectations by more than ten-fold. I told my wife that she should maybe turn on the home laptop and the home desktop and idle on the kennyroy.com homepage, so that there will always be at least “2 viewers” showing on the livestream panel.

I’m dead serious.

I thought in the middle of the night, I would be totally alone and be performing for nobody. I also thought $500-$1000 MAX. To see that we made half in one day, in some ways I feel that people must have made a mistake. Like, there’s no way you all believe in me THAT much. It’s incredibly humbling, and very inspiring at the same time.

AI: How did you arrive at the $29,500 figure, and if you raise more than that – did you have plans on where to channel any extra funds?

KR: The budget for the film is what it would cost Arconyx to make this film, down to the penny, if a client brought The Little Painter in off the street. I write bids and make budgets all the time so it was quick and easy to determine what it would cost to make this.

I have BIG plans for extra funds, should there be any.

A live orchestral score, the ability to hire more and more experienced animators, a more robust production website with more behind the scenes content, increase the number of crowds in the short, render farm rental, shorter production schedule, creation of a feature treatment based on the short, and the ability to approach well-known actors for the voices.

There’s even more but suffice it to say, there are many places I would look to spend extra funding. So don’t stop pledging!

AI: I noticed at the start of the marathon you dedicated it to people very special in your life. How important has family been in getting this film progressed to where it is today?

KR: Well honestly my wife is the most special person I’ve ever met. I have an amazing family, who’ve always been so smart and supportive my whole life. And some great friends and coworkers that have pushed me along the way. But Tamaryn is by far my constant inspiration.

She is always in constant defense of me and my abilities, even (and especially) from even myself. You could safely say that without her I’d probably be in a desk at big studio somewhere, thinking wistfully about the day when I make a short film that never comes.

AI: What stage is the film at? What’s next? Do you have a release date planned?

KR: The film is in pre-production, I’m still finalling all the models of the main characters, and Pierre is finished. I’ve boarded most of the film roughly and they need to be refined. Pierre’s rig was a test bed for some new ideas and I’m pretty happy how he performed during the Marathon.

Next is refine the boards, cut the animatic, and layout the scenes. I’m aiming to have it in next year’s Siggraph Animation Festival so I think the deadline is in early April, so March 2013 is the goal.

AI: Anyone else you wanted to thank or give a shout out too?

KR: Sonya Ballas, my coordinator, rocked during the marathon. I told her to go home, and she disappeared, but came back with a bag of clothes and a pillow. I think she really showed her passion.

I also of course want to start the very long process of thanking and expressing my gratitude to the fans and supporters who watched the Marathon and pledged money to the project. This is going to take a while, to express my love for you guys, but I gotta start somewhere, so thank you!

At the time of writing, The Little Painter Kickstarter campaign has raised just over $23,000 of the $29,500 budget. You have until April 11th, 2012 to donate.

Visit The Little Painter kickstarter site for the most current information about the project.

Once it’s funded, Kenny will announce the official production website at KennyRoy.com and you can follow Pierre’s tracks all the way into his true love’s arms!

The Five Myths of Motion Capture

Is Animation an art or a craft?

Mukpuddy achieve the impossible in 48 hours with Meanie Pants

Phil Willis talks to The Process Diary

Mar 9th

Posted by Phil Willis in Training

The Five Myths of Motion Capture

The other day I sat down and did an interview with Paul Caggegi for his podcast The Process Diary.

I first met Paul Caggegi at a Sydney drinks back when we were both trying to crack into the animation industry.

Paul is a freelance video editor, illustrator, graphic novelist, educator, blogger and podcaster.

We spoke about lots of things, including why I chose Animation Mentor, how I transitioned from software engineering into animation, what it was like working on Happy Feet 2 and how to stay creative and productive when you have a newborn baby in the house.

Hot tip: Work in short bursts when the baby is asleep.

Just talking about some of those topics made me want to write and share more about topics of animation education, creativity and balancing life, art and work. So stay tuned for future blog posts on each of those topics.

In the meantime, check out the the full 35-minute interview: Process Diary interview with Phil Willis.

Is Animation an art or a craft?

Bring on the live-action remake of Akira

Mukpuddy achieves the impossible in 48 hours

Stephen P Neary serves up Dr Breakfast

Mar 2nd

Posted by Phil Willis in Films

Cube Creative gets away with murder

“One day at breakfast, a man’s soul bursts out of his eyeball…”

What follows after that is the surreal and touching Dr Breakfast, and must be seen to be believed.

Written and animated by Stephen P Neary, this bizarre tale made its debut at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival.

Neary made good use of his long commute to his day job by animating on the train to work and back. Check out the behind-the-scenes footage from Dr Breakfast.

To see more of his work, check out the Stephen P Neary blog.

Nick Cross reveals Black Sunrise trailer

Cube Creative gets away with Murder

Feb 10th

Posted by Phil Willis in Films

Nick Cross reveals Black Sunrise trailer

Cube Creative have just released a teaser to their short film Le Meurtre (The Murder).

Using a limited color palette, French artists Tom Haugomat and Bruno Mangyoku have created a stylish, screen-printed look to this animated folk tale.

Once funding has been secured, they’re looking forward to completing the project.

Mukpuddy achieve the impossible in 48 hours with Meanie Pants

Five Myths of Motion Capture

Feb 3rd

Posted by Phil Willis in Industry

Is Animation an art or a craft?

By now you would have seen the Academy Award nominations for best animated feature for 2011.

Congratulations to all the Oscar nominees: Une vie de chat (A Cat in Paris), Chico and Rita, Kung Fu Panda 2, Puss in Boots and Rango.

It’s impossible to say whether a film like The Adventures of Tintin was excluded from the list because it included motion capture as a technique.

But in a recent interview with Joe Letteri, senior visual effects supervisor for Weta Digital, he indicated that he had his own theory on why Tintin was snubbed.

I think that was a really big oversight… Not to recognise those achievements. The visual effects branch didn’t recognise it, because they thought it was animation, and the animation branch didn’t recognise it because it was using performance capture and visual effects techniques. – Joe Letteri

Whether you agree with the decision or not, it’s probably as good a time as any to dispell some myths about films that use motion capture.

Full disclosure: I worked on Happy Feet 2. In this article, my views are my own, naturally, and do not represent the production team or the studio.

Myth 1: Motion capture artists aren’t animators

Note: that is distinct from saying that motion capture is animation. Obviously the techniques are quite different.

But as far as the people hired to edit motion captured from a live performance, in all cases I’ve seen: studios hire animators.

The animators are hired based on their keyframe animation skills and on their showreels.

Why?

Because studios know that motion editing requires the same set of skills that make good keyframe animators: timing, spacing, strong poses, weight, exaggeration, appeal etc.

Myth 2: Movies that use motion capture look terrible

To be honest, there are some horrible looking films out there that use motion capture. You could probably think of three right now off the top of your head.

You want me to name them?

Ha! Nice try.

But you know what – some keyframe animated films don’t look that hot either, quite frankly.

I’m sure for every beautiful film that uses motion capture, like Avatar or Tintin, you could provide a counter-example, but the technique of motion capture by itself is not to blame for crummy films.

Myth 3: Using motion capture makes it a “motion capture movie”

Speaking from experience, there is no way you could possibly take just take the data from the motion capture floor, clean it up a bit and send it off to be rendered.

For starters, there are often many characters and objects that are not suitable for capture by a person in a suit: four-legged animals, birds, vehicles, sets and props.

Seriously. No-one is going to squeeze into a motion capture suit and flap around like a bird, when you could just as easily keyframe animate it.

No-one stuck reflective balls on a trained dog in order to capture the motion for Snowy in Tintin.

Calling a film a “motion capture movie” is about as accurate as calling something a “special effects movie”.

Myth 4: Motion capture movies have no animation in them

On Happy Feet 2 I had a chance to work with George Miller as my director and Rob Coleman as my animation director. When these directors were in a darkened room looking to improve the shot, they honestly didn’t care whether a scene was captured from a dance, a drama performance or animated by hand.

They just wanted the result they were after.

A lot of the time spent as motion editors was perfecting the already brilliant performances, including adding extra motion, adding spins and new gestures, selling the weight of the characters and adding overlap to the body and limbs.

All of these involved adding motion and frames where there were none previously.

In other words, even the motion editors were animating by hand in many cases. Frame by frame.

Myth 5: Films that use motion capture are ineligible for the Academy Award for Animated Feature

If you want your animated feature film to be eligible for Oscar nominations, the rules read as follows:

An animated feature film is defined as a motion picture with a running time of more than 40 minutes, in which movement and characters’ performances are created using a frame-by-frame technique. Motion capture by itself is not an animation technique. In addition, a significant number of the major characters must be animated, and animation must figure in no less than 75 percent of the picture’s running time. – Academy Awards Rules for Best Animated Feature Film (my emphasis added)

I agree.

Motion capture by itself is not an animation technique.

The argument for films like Tintin and Happy Feet 2 is that while they use motion capture as one of their techniques, there is plenty of animation in the film to allow it to qualify.

Happy Feet 2 ran at about 1100 shots, and only around 750 out of those shots contained motion capture. And of those 750 shots, almost all of them would have had some elements animated frame-by-frame: keyframed characters, lip synch, facial expression, moving sets and props.

Honestly, it would be more difficult to find a shot in the film that didn’t contain any keyframed animation.

Whether we like it or not, motion capture is here to stay.

When used intelligently, there’s no reason it shouldn’t compliment frame-by-frame animation as another technique for producing television, videogames and films.

Bring on the live-action remake of Akira

Mukpuddy achieves the impossible in 48 hours

The perfect animation education

Nick Cross reveals Black Sunrise trailer

Jan 17th

Posted by Phil Willis in Films

Nick Cross has released the second trailer to his indie animated feature Black Sunrise.

I’m not sure what’s more impressive: the stylish, smooth animation or the fact that Cross really has his heart set on creating his own feature-length animated film.

Cross is no stranger to dark themes. His brilliant short The Pig Farmer, also combines incredible hand-drawn animation with political themes and sinister, shadowy characters.

To see more progress reports on the making of Black Sunrise, check out the Nick Cross animation blog.

Mukpuddy achieve the impossible in 48 hours with Meanie Pants

Classic videogames inspire Mike Scott’s Goldfish animation

Nacho Rodriguez unveils Mister Coo music video

Dec 1st

Posted by Phil Willis in Films

Ça Ça Mirlaquerr is a new music video animated by Nacho Rodriguez.

Nacho is responsible for the Las Aventuras de Mister Coo series of hand animated shorts, and this new music video has the same amount of life and frantic energy.

The simple designs allow so much movement and incredible squash and stretch. This is what I love so much about 2d hand-drawn animation.

To see more of Nacho’s works, check out his website: Mister Coo.