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3DTotal: Your animated short ‘Plumber’ has been well-received throughout the world. How did it come about?
Richard : Plumber was our first fully computer generated short film produced over a six month period at Redrover Animation Studios Ltd. in association with Bravo!Fact. It was co-directed by myself and produced by Randi Yaffa. The concept initially began as a pitch for a grant from Bravo!Fact and after a storyboard and animatic were developed and submitted, we were chosen as one of approximately 12 final contestants. With the grant officially awarded to us, we began production only one week after that in late August, 2002. The purpose of producing the film was to introduce our department into the short film production industry as well as to push the studios’ creative and technological experience to the limit. The film was completed in February 2003, making it a six-month project from start to finish.
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3DTotal : How important do you think it was to create a short film like that?
Richard
: The production of “Plumber” gave me insight into the enormous task of working on a medium length format project and how to tackle all the technical issues I was never faced with during standard commercial production. At first it was more of an experiment and we weren’t quite sure how far it would go, but as the project continued to develop, we began seeing some of our hard work pay off in finished scenes. For a first film, we certainly set our goals high: 66% of the film involved computational fluid dynamics, all the clothing on the main character was dynamically simulated and all the rendering was produced using traditional lighting techniques combined with global illumination technology and image-based lighting features. Once completed, the film did surprisingly well in the festival circuit and to this day, I still receive emails from enthusiasts all over the world complementing our work on it. |
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3DTotal : What areas of your work do you enjoy the most?
Richard : Aside from directing, I am most interested in the art direction, lighting and rendering of computer graphics. I find it extremely challenging and demanding to produce a beautifully-lit and rendered image that can convey a particular mood or emotion. With today’s modern state-of-the-art ray tracers, features such as global illumination, sub-surface light scattering, spectral rendering and much more, allow the artist to produce even more visually stunning images that were never before possible, at a much higher level of realism.
3DTotal : Some guys new to 3D may be taken aback by the level of today’s technology and others are scared off by it. How would you go about explaining the importance of using the technology purely as a tool for conveying stories and emotions?
Richard : One common issue I see regularly, especially from 2D artists taking the plunge into 3D, is that they are often intimidated by the computer. I’ve worked with people who have never touched a computer before, except for email, and they are simply overwhelmed when you first show them how the software operates. It is at this critical stage that the artist either succeeds or fails. Those that succeed accept the computer as nothing more than a tool and choose not to be intimidated by it. Those that fail often do so because they cannot understand that they are the ones in control of this tool. |
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I always encourage new artists that work with us to ask questions, no matter how silly they may seem. Some questions
which may seem trivial can be crucial
from studio to studio as everyone has
their own established pipeline and workflow. And of course, our team at
Hatch are approachable artists who are alwaysready to lend a hand when needed. |
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