Animation Guild | We are 839 Digital Magazine
Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1535742
24 KEYFRAME F E AT U R E Like Tomimasu, Orion and the Dark was Lauren Zurcher's first feature film working as a Visual Development Artist. While studying animation and illustration at San Jose State University, she interned at Nickelodeon. This led to a position as a Background Painter on Avatar: The Legend of Korra, and from there she worked at other studios until she landed on Orion in a role she calls—in the best of ways—challenging. "I had come from TV, so the production pipeline was different from what I had previously been familiar with," she says. "[And] from designing a prop to an entire environment, it's always challenging making decisions that serve the overall story." These decisions were uniquely affected, Zurcher says, by the style established by Production Designer Tim Lamb and Art Director Christine Bian. Orion has a purposefully handmade feel, a look Zurcher describes as gorgeous and inspiring. "The linework and textures used throughout the movie helped create a nice feeling of looseness, and it was exciting creating artwork that felt similar to using a pencil in my sketchbook or paint on canvas." Her Emmy submissions are prime examples of this. The variety of scenes depicting Orion in the classroom, at home, and up in the sky look as if they were painted with a brush rather than crafted with digital tools. The starring element in Zurcher's submissions, though, is color—the category in which she was recognized. She says that of all her work on the film, she is proudest of contributing to Orion's color script, which she calls a visual guide that helped tell the story through color and lighting. It can be difficult trying to capture the emotional tone of a scene through a painting, and she says: "Different hues, saturations, and values affect the composition, which [then] impacts the overall mood." Zurcher confesses that she was extremely nervous going into the film, but that feeling soon vanished in the collaborative environment. "Being able to bounce around ideas and build off each other is fun," she says, "[and] the work I contributed and everything I learned represented a big step for me. To me, individually, [this Emmy] is a recognition of the struggle we all go through as artists. Beyond that, it means the team that made Orion and the Dark is really special, and this award would not have been possible without them." Orion and the Dark images courtesy of Dreamworks Animation. Zurcher's dynamic use of color is featured in one of her Emmy submissions (top) and her contributions to the movie's color script (bottom). Lauren Zurcher VISUAL DEVELOPMENT ARTIST/ DIGIMATTE ARTIST C AT EG O RY: Color Orion and the Dark 24 KEYFRAME