This film is a 30-second short film created for my 3-D Production class. I am responsible for everything except music. Our only requirements were it had to be at least three shots, one of those shots had to contain a moving camera, and we had to produce the entire film by ourselves. It also had to be based on the nursery rhyme "Jack Be Nimble", which goes like this:
La Vie en Rose
Jack be nimble,
Jack be quick,
Jack, jump over the candlestick
Jack jumped high,
Jack jumped low,
Jack jumped over and burned his toe.
I interpreted this nursery rhyme to mean there's some kind of obstacle that Jack has to overcome, but he approaches it too hastily, and fails because of that. So I came up with several ideas that could fit this theme. You can click on the images to make them bigger.
Idea One
Idea Two
Idea Three
PreViz
After getting the first idea approved, I started to develop it more. As you can see in those thumbnails, I was originally planning on having a more dynamic camera, and have the animation be more typical of 3-D animated films. My first previz pass also reflects this.
However, my professor really challenged us to try to experiment with new aesthetic styles for 3-D Animation. I started looking at other unconventional 3-D Productions, and came across the "Night in the Woods" video game by Alec Holowka and Scott Benson. I've always loved the 2-D aesthetic, so I tried to achieve something like that, but with 3-D technology. Once I'd made that decision, I revised the previz to reflect this more 2-D style.
Construction
One of the more challenging aspects of the project was to model, rig, and light everything ourselves. Due to the 2-D nature of my project, I had to model and rig everything twice, once for the first shot, and again for the last two shots. Here are some images to show the models, rigs, and textures. Click on the images to make them bigger.
Lighting, Rendering, Editing and Sound
I am not a lighter. Therefore, when I realized that this 2-D aesthetic would only require two lights in each scene, I was thrilled. The time I didn't have to spend on lighting was able to go towards the construction, which benefited me in the long run. After that, rendering and editing the film was pretty straightforward. I was able to use Sound Miner for the SFX, and the music was pretty easy to loop. After I designed some fun credits, the film was complete! It was a wild journey from start to finish, but it was worth it! I'd completed my first animated film!