Animation Guild | We are 839 Digital Magazine
Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1257506
this page: Flower in the Mirror stitched together different animation styles. opposite: Graffiti comes alive in Downtown. F E AT U R E "The hope is always that the things we create will find their way down the line [to features]" – JERRY HUYNH Disney Animation Studios president Clark Spencer. "All with the hope that these shorts will influence and shape our features in the future." Jeff Gipson's Cycles, which tells the story of a family's half-century-long connection to their home once the aging matriarch is moved to assisted living, is a perfect example. Unspooling in reverse chronology in one continuous shot, Cycles is an immersive mix of modern and classic animation that uses time-lapse techniques, 6DoF virtual reality technology, and motion capture. Among other things, the use of VR tech required Gipson's crew to develop an entirely new workflow. "We had to figure out what that meant from a technology standpoint, from a storytelling standpoint, from an art standpoint," says Gipson, a lighting artist on Frozen and Zootopia. "But also pitching that to executives in a way that they can understand and get behind [the idea]." The Short Circuit projects allowed artists to display an amazing breadth of visual and storytelling styles. Technical Director Jerry Huynh's Jing Hua (Flower in the Mirror) incorporates traditional Chinese calligraphy, music, martial arts, and dance by stitching together several animation styles. For Just a Thought, Director Brian Menz (animator on Frozen, Zootopia), created a playful visual style based on newspaper comics to illustrate how a 12-year- old boy's crush becomes visible via embarrassing thought bubbles. Layout Artist Kendra Vander Vliet made use of a hundred different types of graffiti in her colorful, kinetic short Downtown. "Our audience has changed," says Disney Modeler John Aquino, Director of the Short Circuit project Lightning in a Bottle. "With streaming, we're basically showing everyone, 'Hey, we have all these styles…technology and software available to enrich our stories." There's a synergistic relationship between the shorts and the features: The shorts pull elements—buildings, characters, landscapes, creatures— from produced features such as Moana, Zootopia, and Big Hero 6, and the resulting shorts add to the palette from which future feature filmmakers can draw new designs, new 32 KEYFRAME