Computer Graphics World

working on other material outside of 9. I have been developing a few projects, and I am having a lot of fun exploring new ter- ritory. One story takes place deep in a for- est, which is a stark contrast to the ruined urban landscape in 9. It's an epic adventure in which the creatures of the forest must confront a dark force that has entered their world. ey've uncovered an ancient evil, and now it's corrupting the animals, turn- ing them against one another and throw- ing off the balance of nature to the point where life itself is threatened. Now it's up to the meekest of the creatures to unite and rise up to face this evil. Like 9, it's a little edgier and more dramatic than a lot of the animation that's out there right now. We are pitching it around town right now, so hopefully it will fi nd a home. It would be a lot of fun to make. As I recall, you started out on the 2D side and learned a lot about 3D on "9" and while working on fi lm projects like e Lord of the Rings (LOR). Was it a trial by fi re, so to speak? I fi nd that you only really learn some- thing when you invest yourself in a proj- ect. It's easy to give up on a little animation study or exercise, but when you are com- mitted to making a short fi lm, you have to fi nd a way to get it done. at's how I learned 3D animation production, by cre- ating the short fi lm "9." ankfully, there are many resources online and books you can buy to help you along. School will give you an introductory survey to the process and techniques of animation, but the rigor of actual production and having to cre- atively problem-solve on your own is what will really shape you as an artist. How has your use of 3D evolved since LOR and the short? I use 3D more now as a design tool and a way of roughing in my ideas and commu- nicating my intent. As a director, you are going to be working with artists who are always going to be better than you at what they do. You are kind of a jack-of-all-trades but master of none, so it's rare that I will ever be personally working on any fi nished shots. I use 3D to make quick-study mod- els or to rough in camera shots or to tweak existing assets, to give direction to artists and to push them in a way I need them to go. At the same time, I like to give art- ists some creative space and let them bring their artistry to the table. at's how you will achieve the best results. e story team and I adopted a methodol- ogy where we would go into the rough mod- els of the sets and set up cameras as we were storyboarding. We would make screen grabs of the shots and then draw our storyboards on top. is saved a lot of time because we didn't have to draw backgrounds, and it gave us a dry run at the layout so we weren't cheat- ing too much. en when we would turn over the sequences to layout; we'd also give them the [Autodesk] Maya fi les with the saved cameras so they'd have a clearer idea of what we were doing cinematically. What were some of the obstacles you faced while working on the feature that you didn't encounter on the short fi lm? Story, screenwriting, and budget. I had never done a long-format fi lm before, let alone one with dialog. Trying to get the pacing and story structure to work was something we constantly hammered away on. Fortunately, I had a great editor, Nick Kenway, who was able to pull the pieces to- gether and keep arranging the story bits to get a cohesive whole. Constantly trying to leverage the schedule, the budget, and what was important to the movie was exhausting. It was about constantly making choices and trying to fi nd ways to cut back and com- bine or reuse pieces to tell the story and to get more bang for our buck. Starz and the creative leads from 9 really came together as a team on this issue. If it wasn't for the dedication and creativity of VFX supervi- sor Jeff Bell, art director Kevin Adams, and animation director Joe Ksander, as well as associate producer Graham Moloy and pro- ducer Jinko Gotoh, we wouldn't have half the fi lm we have up on screen today. How has the 9 story evolved? e short was like a view of the world 9 from a cracked door. In the feature, we throw the door wide open. We now get to see more of the world and discover how it came to be. We follow all nine of the stitchpunk creatures as they set out on a journey of self-discovery. It's through their adventures that we begin to piece together the tragedy that befell the humans, who, in a way, still haunt the world in broken fragments and fi lm snippets of the past. When the stitchpunks inadvertently awake the thing that destroyed humanity, the fi lm escalates into a struggle for survival and for the future of the world. Remnants from human civilization, such as this doll, are found throughout the environments. September 2009 42 ■ ■ ■ ■ Computer Animation

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