'topi' production blog

Best 3D Animation + Best Lighting & Compositing at Jaipur Animation Film Festival

2011-10-14T10:08:00.000-07:00

Nice to receive these awards at an animation only festival. Jaipur is a lucky city for Topi - the film previously received the Critics' Award at the Jaipur International Film Festival.

The Express Tribune 'Video of the Day'

2011-10-10T20:52:00.000-07:00

Topi just got a 'thumbs up' in Pakistan's Express Tribune:

"We all grew up listening to accounts of what happened during the 1947 partition, but Topi, a unique, animated short film, explores the sad tale of what the poor people of both countries went through in a new artistic perspective.

Said to be the only animated film on this topic, Topi is a story of a Hindu boy named Bir who migrated to India from Pakistan along with many other fellow Hindus.

For many, the partition was a moment of grief which forced them to leave their homeland for a new destination; a home they never asked for. This short animated film managed to capture the essence of this largely unexplored aspect of the migration.

Video rating: Thumbs up, for making a film on what people went through during the migration and not what people at the helm of power struggled for. "

'River Admiration Award' at Silent River Film Festival

2011-09-19T12:55:00.000-07:00

I was happy to hear that Topi received the 'River Admiration Award' at the Silent River Film Festival, which ran from Sept 9-16 in Irvine, California. This prize is 'given to an outstanding Film, outstanding Actor and outstanding Actress', and Topi was honored in the Student Short Animation category.

(Topi was also nominated for Best Film and Best Director).

Indian Film Festival of Hope

2011-08-31T23:25:00.000-07:00

This was a small festival that was held on August 13th and 14th in San Francisco. One of the organizers recorded the Q&A for Topi on a cellphone, and I've managed to upload a few short segments.

Style of the film:

Story/Background:

Casting Process:

Broader Historical and Cultural Context:

The festival website

POW! WHIZ! BAM!

2011-08-02T23:41:00.000-07:00

Visual Communications (the organization behind the LA Asian Pacific Film Festival) is featuring Topi in 'Pow! Whiz! Bam!', its upcoming animation mini-film festival on August 6 in LA's Little Tokyo.

Paris-Delhi-Bombay pics

2011-06-10T14:48:00.000-07:00

I just received these pics of the space in which Topi is being exhibited at the Centre Pompidou in Paris. The entrance to the space is through giant 'eyes', and the interior contains a salon in which visitors can experience Indian music, websites, and video.

Photos by: shang

I love the image of the curious little boy watching Topi.

Centre Pompidou, Paris

2011-06-01T23:32:00.000-07:00

'Topi' is being featured in an exhibition on contemporary Indian art called 'Paris Delhi Bombay' at the Centre Pompidou in Paris from May 24 to September 5.

The official flyer

This modern art museum is my favorite in Paris, and I'm still in shock that my film is playing there. I found a video about the exhibition, and also dug up a few of the pictures I took at the museum during my 2008 trip to France.

The last post-it

2011-05-29T11:10:00.000-07:00

Found while cleaning today

A Morning at James Lick Middle School

2011-05-17T16:46:00.000-07:00

This morning, I spent a very engaging first period presenting 'Topi' to a group of sixth graders at James Lick Middle School in San Francisco. The screening was timely since the children have been learning about India in the context of studying water and related issues, and have also been corresponding with pen pals from an international school in India. This was a much bigger group than the one at Good Samaritan, and questions flew at me from all directions. Some favorites: 'Why are the people in the film wearing two different colors of clothing?' 'Do you have a pen pal?' 'If you could change anything about the film, would you?' I was impressed with their understanding of film and cinema, and was especially happy to hear that they were learning about India in class.

(Another fantastic visit organized by Rocio from SFIFF, and thanks also to Averel Wilson and all the other teachers at James Lick for hosting us).

Early Artwork

2011-05-15T14:00:00.000-07:00

I found these early sketches while cleaning recently.

Good Samaritan Family Resource Center visit

2011-05-13T20:38:00.000-07:00

As part of the San Francisco International Film Festival's outreach to local schools, I visited the Good Samaritan Family Resource Center in San Francisco this past weekend, where I screened 'Topi' for a group of nine inquisitive 8th-graders.

In our introduction prior to the screening, it became clear that the children had not been taught much Indian history in school. But they picked up the message and ideas in the film quickly, and raised many insightful questions afterwards. Many of the children were Latin American and could see the parallels between the British Empire and the Spanish colonization of the Americas. They were familiar with Mahatma Gandhi, and I was able to use the film as a tool to discuss his role in this period of Indian history.

We had a thought-provoking discussion about the meaning of the prayer cap, religious conflicts, and many other aspects of the film. But inevitably, many of their questions were about India in general and there was a real curiosity about this faraway part of the world. Among my favorites: 'Are there gangs in India?' 'Do people dance a lot in India?' 'Are you the little boy in the film?' In fact, there were so many questions that we could not get to all of them in the hour-long visit.

Too often at a film festival, I end up analyzing films solely on the basis of individual aspects such as sound, story, cinematography, etc. But this visit brought me back to the idea that a film is a window to an entire world, real or imagined. Without a doubt, this has been the most rewarding screening of 'Topi' to date.

(Thanks to SFIFF's Rocio Salazar for organizing the visit and to Andrea Chicas from the Good Samaritan Youth and Youth Services for hosting us).

San Francisco International Film Festival Update

2011-05-13T11:31:00.000-07:00

Opening night at the Castro Theatre

The hot seat

I had a great time presenting Topi at SFIFF. It screened three times as a part of the 'Get with the Program' block of animated shorts, and was featured in various publicity materials. I was able to make it to all three screenings, and stuck around to answer questions afterwards. The audiences were fantastic and were interested in many different aspects of the film including the personal connection, the historical context, and the animation process.

One film student asked, "Would you change anything?" To be honest, I'd change everything if I could because I've learned so much since the film was completed and reflected even more on each plot point, character, and cut since I completed it. At every viewing, I want to change something different about the film to see if that would make it better. And yet, despite its flaws, I'd change nothing because making the film was such a terrific learning experience. I had many other prolonged conversations with audience members about the film, and it was wonderful to see 'Topi' received so well.

A few mentions:

Nice program

The festival is really well run and very filmmaker-centric, with a particularly awesome hospitality lounge for folks representing films. I got to meet quite a few directors as well, and it's exciting to reconnect with such a vibrant local film scene.

Best Short Film nominee at New York Indian Film Festival

2011-05-09T08:55:00.000-07:00

Topi missed out on Best Short Film but it's still fantastic to be nominated for the award at one of the most prestigious Indian film festivals around.

San Francisco International Film Festival

2011-03-31T09:57:00.000-07:00

Topi will be part of the Get with the Program block that screens on Apr 23, Apr 27 and May 5. I'm hoping to attend at least one of the screenings in person.

Having been around since 1957, SFIFF is the "longest-running film festival in the Americas."

Art Gallery of Ontario

2011-03-20T21:35:00.000-07:00

The Art Gallery of Ontario is going to feature my short films 'Topi', 'Abridged' and 'Arjuna' as part of their March Break family week that is themed "Maharaja". It's great to see the films screened in an institutional setting.

Annecy!

2011-03-10T11:23:00.000-08:00

Well, sort of. Topi didn't make it into Annecy last year, but when it won Best Student Film at Animation Block Party in 2009, I was invited to create an environmentally-themed public service announcement for ABP 2010. This resulted in 'Switch Today', a stop-motion short that makes the case for using recycled toilet paper, and I was thrilled to learn that this 1-minute piece has just been selected by Annecy 2011 in the Educational, Scientific or Industrial Films category.

'Switch Today' was my first real attempt at stop-motion and was created entirely in my apartment, where I came face-to-face with the many challenges of dealing with gravity, glue and green screen.

Some behind-the-scenes images:

I'm especially happy with the results because I shot it straight-ahead with a simple point and shoot camera, instead of using a more traditional (and complicated) setup that involved specialized stop-motion software and a camera hooked up to a computer.

Pics from Great Wall of Oakland

2011-02-23T10:45:00.000-08:00

I just got these images of Topi being projected onto the 100 ft x 100 ft Great Wall of Oakland in November as part of a group Pixar screening. The wall is a public venue located in downtown Oakland.

They also screened my previous film, 'Abridged':

Shamiana Shorts

2011-02-07T10:01:00.000-08:00

Shamiana Shorts has been exhibiting Topi as part of a traveling film festival that was recently in my hometown, Pune. The venue was down the street from my home so my parents were able to make it, which was great.

Topi has 100,000 hits on YouTube

2011-02-06T15:06:00.000-08:00

I spent a long debating whether to put Topi online, but I'm glad I did. Despite a slow start, this week the film crossed 100,000 views, largely due to a viral response in India during September 2010. I'd never imagined that so many people would watch the film, and it's tremendously gratifying to have access to viewers' reactions, something that's not always possible at film festivals. One of my favorite comments was posted by mrvirenjn:

"This reminds me of what my grandfather once told me, when he had to migrate to India after partition.He actually missed the train he was supposed to be on.And people on that train were slaughtered before it could reach Amritsar.I could never have been born,and this video really made me feel for that boy when he lost his mother.Partition was terrible.This video just reminds us of the innate goodness in human beings.Of how it was and how it should have been."

In the stress of trying to finish the film and get it out there, it's easy to get lost in the intricacies of composition, animation, sound, festivals, etc and forget about the bigger picture. But hearing viewer responses such as the one above reminds me of why I chose to do this project, and why films that are actually about something are so vital.

Critics' Award at Jaipur International Film Festival

2011-02-04T20:45:00.000-08:00

Just heard about the award - Topi was also selected to screen on opening night!

The real Bir

2011-01-25T14:43:00.000-08:00

On a recent trip to India, I met up with Gurshish Dhupar, who voiced Bir in the film. It's the first time I had seen him since our recording sessions in December 2007. He's a lot taller now and his voice has changed quite a bit too :) but he is still a bright, confident, budding animator and is very interested in 3D stereoscopic filmmaking. I'm sure this is not his last acting gig either.

Screening Update

2011-01-24T20:24:00.000-08:00

YES INDIA Film Festival, Auckland, New Zealand: October 28-November 3, 2010

ASIFA-Hollywood Student Film Festival, Long Beach, California: November 6, 2010

Boston Asian American Film Festival, Boston, Massachusetts: November 11-14, 2010

REELkids Film Festival, Ontario, Canada: January 17-20, 2011
Jaipur International Film Festival, Jaipur, India: January 27-30, 2011 (Topi was one of the films screened on opening night)

India International Film Festival of Tampa bay, Tampa, FL: February 18-20, 201

San Francisco International Animation Festival

2010-11-17T10:54:00.000-08:00

I made the badge!

This past Saturday I attended the San Francisco International Animation Festival. Unfortunately, due to a technical issue with the tape, Topi couldn't be played in its scheduled block of films. Despite my initial disappointment, I was impressed by and appreciated SFIAF programmer Sean Uyehara's efforts to make sure that the film was shown, and it eventually screened the following day. The festival itself is awesome, very filmmaker-centric and a great line-up.

A local blogger liked Topi and called it 'very powerful' :)

Upcoming/Recent screenings

2010-09-25T17:29:00.000-07:00

Filmi Mississauga Minifest, Mississauga, Canada: July 8-10, 2010
New Orleans Intnl Children's Film Festival, New Orleans, Louisiana: July 31 - August 1, 2010 - also screened my film 'Abridged'

Temecula Valley International Film Festival, Temecula, California: September 15-19, 2010

Hench-DADA Animation Showcase, Los Angeles: September 17, 2010 - a screening organized by my school

Great Wall of Oakland, Oakland, California: October 1, 2010 - a neat outdoor screening projected onto a wall
DC Asian Pacific American Film Festival, Washington DC: October 7-16, 2010 - Topi continues to do well in Asian-themed festivals
Big Cartoon Fest, Moscow: Russia, October 28 - November 7, 2010 - Russian Premiere!
Ojai Film Festival, Ojai, California: November 4-7, 2010
San Francisco International Animation Festival, San Francisco: November 11 - 14, 2010 - organized by the San Francisco Film Society.

1947 Partition Archive

2010-09-15T20:21:00.000-07:00

I recently learned of this really interesting Bay Area-based project to document and archive personal accounts of partition - http://www.1947partitionarchive.org/.

Nice ink on 'Of Indian Origin'

2010-08-24T22:16:00.000-07:00

Topi just got a mention on this neat Indian-themed creative blog.

Electronic Theater!

2010-07-11T00:20:00.000-07:00

Topi got into Siggraph's Electronic Theater! I was stunned to hear that it will be playing alongside clips from Avatar, Tron, Pixar's Day & Night, and other awesome CG.

Topi on Youtube

2010-05-28T09:48:00.000-07:00

Topi is now online!

Busan International Short Film Festival

2010-05-25T20:17:00.000-07:00

Just received some pics of Topi's South Korean premiere!

Honorable Mention at ASIFA-East Animation Festival

2010-05-10T20:02:00.000-07:00

Nice to be recognized by ASIFA, and one member said:
"Rich in texture and spirit, and plush with great models and thoughtful lighting, Topi serves as proof that CG can be engaging and compelling."

ASIFA-East President David Levy (whom I met at Hiroshima 2008) blogged:
"It's a very serious and moving film, lovingly staged and executed".

Notre Dame

2010-05-09T15:01:00.000-07:00

Last weekend, I was invited to present Topi at the Center of Ethics & Culture at the University of Notre Dame, as part of a screening of films from last year's Angelus Film Festival.

It was a fantastic trip that included a well-attended screening and panel discussion. The highlight was hearing from someone that they had been using 'Topi' as part of a religion class.

There's a write-up on the Notre Dame event here .

Siggraph Computer Animation Festival 2010

2010-05-03T23:43:00.000-07:00

This is the first time I've managed to get into the Siggraph Computer Animation Festival. Stoked that Topi holds up technically with the best.

Best Short Short at Lancaster Area Film Festival

2010-04-27T20:50:00.000-07:00

Second award today!

Best Graduate Film at Ivy Film Festival

2010-04-26T21:00:00.000-07:00

Sweet!

Indian Film Festival of Los Angeles

2010-04-25T22:43:00.000-07:00

Forgot to post this earlier - I was excited to have Topi be included in the Indian Film Festival of Los Angeles and also on their website.

College TV Awards Runner-up

2010-04-15T12:21:00.000-07:00

Last weekend, I was down in LA to receive the 2nd Prize in the College Television Awards Animation category (aka the 'Student Emmys'). The awards are given out to the producers of each film by the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, and this is Topi's first 'industry' award.

The event was fun and included a gala dinner as well as the full red-carpet treatment. I was joined by several members of the cast, crew, and USC faculty.

Above: me with crew members Joanna Griebel, Sarah Zerina Usmen, and John Helton.

USC's animation department also placed this awesome ad in the programme:

Topi at Sala Parpalló

2010-04-15T01:30:00.000-07:00

As I've mentioned elsewhere, Sala Parpalló is a contemporary art gallery in Valencia, Spain that has included 'Topi' in an audiovisual program about India that will run during May 2010. I just received a copy of their program:

Wish I could see it in person, the place looks really cool:

Topi on Japanese TV

2010-03-25T17:11:00.000-07:00

Topi was recently featured on 'Gat Chane', a program that airs on public television in Japan. The show features the work of both students and researchers, and is aimed at college students.

An excerpt from Topi was included in their episode on motion capture at USC:

The motion capture stage shown is where I shot all the mocap for the film - it's at the Robert Zemeckis Center for Digital Arts at USC. Zemeckis was also the co-instructor of my my mocap class and is featured right before Topi in the clip above.

Now if only I knew what they were saying...

Best Animation at International Short Film Festival of India

2010-03-25T09:42:00.000-07:00

Topi won its first Indian award(!) in the animated film category at ISFFI 2010, which was held in Chennai, India.

Screening Update

2010-03-01T09:53:00.000-08:00

Quite a few exciting events coming up:

Epiphany Children's Film Festival, New York: March 5, 2010

The interesting story about this festival (which is organized by The Epiphany School) is that they initially told me that my entry would most likely be rejected unless I edited out sections of the film that were deemed too violent for young children. I considered this, but decided against it for both creative and logistical reasons. I was therefore delighted when the festival subsequently chose both to screen 'Topi' and to include the film in the school's curriculum:

' There are a few films that had an extra element that would be wonderful for the guidance program and for the Religious Education program because of the thought provoking issues they raise, Topi, being one in particular.'

Tiburon International Film Festival, Tiburon, California: March 18-26, 2010

Indian Short Film Festival of India, Chennai, India: March 20-21, 2010

San Francisco International Children's Film Festival, San Francisco Moscone Center: April 2-4, 2010

Indian Film Festival of Los Angeles, ArcLight Hollywood: April 20-25, 2010

Delta International Film and Video Festival, Delta State University, Cleveland, Mississippi: April 21-23, 2010

Lancaster Area Film Festival, Lititz, Pennyslvania: April 24, 2010

Adobe First Frame, Los Angeles: May 6, 2010

Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival: April 29-May 8, 2010

Busan International Short Film Festival, Busan, South Korea, May 2010

In addition, the Angelus Student Film Festival and the University of Notre Dame's Center for Ethics and Culture are showcasing Topi along with a few other Angelus films on May 1. They've generously provided transportation and accommodation, and I'm looking forward to being there in person.

Finally, Sala Parpalló is a contemporary art gallery in Valencia, Spain that has included 'Topi' in an audiovisual program about India that will run during May 2010.

It's nice to see Topi being recognized outside the festival realm in both academic and institutional settings.

Best Animated Short at Oxford Film Festival

2010-02-07T23:17:00.000-08:00

Topi screened at the Oxford Film Festival (February 4-7) in Mississippi, and won the animated short category!

The award statues are sweet - the design is inspired by the Native American princess 'Hoka'.

In addition, the organizers featured me on their blog recently: http://oxfordfilmfest.blogspot.com/2010/02/take-5-with-topi.html

Animation Reporter article

2010-02-04T18:31:00.000-08:00

Animation Report is an Indian magazine that featured Topi in their latest issue.

Topi featured on Windrider forum

2010-01-06T20:47:00.000-08:00

Topi will be featured on this forum for a month - http://windriderforum.org/2010/01/05/now-playing-topi/.

From the site:

“Topi,” based on a conflict that took place over 60 years ago, seems eerily relevant today, as religion continues to serve as a flashpoint for conflict around the globe. Rihan’s visual fundamentals, combined with a solid directorial prism, lay the foundation for a well-developed storyline that cuts across cultural barriers and stimulates conversation. When done well, animated storytelling is a fine and beautiful art form. “Topi” is an example of this form at its best.

Mention on CGChannel.com

2010-01-06T20:46:00.001-08:00

'Golden Oosikar' at Anchorage International Film Festival

2009-12-15T21:36:00.000-08:00

I just got back from the Anchorage International Film Festival in Alaska. It was an eventful trip, starting with a missed connection and lost luggage, but ended on a high note with 'Topi' bagging the first prize in the animation category. For the 'Golden Oosikar' award, I received an oosik, which is a fossilized walrus penis (!).

The screening of 'Topi' that I attended went well and there were some good questions at the Q & A after. As I've mentioned before, this was the first time I'd seen the film with a public audience.

I also had the opportunity to meet several filmmakers and festival organizers. And I took lots of pictures of snow :)

River to River Florence Indian Film Festival Audience Award (Short Film)

2009-12-10T09:59:00.000-08:00

I'm thrilled that Topi won its first audience award at an Indian-themed festival. This is also the film's first international award.

The festival's name refers to the rivers Arno (Italy) and Ganges (India).

'Commendation' at 2D Or Not 2D Animation Festival

2009-12-06T16:01:00.000-08:00

Very nice to be recognized by this festival because its mission is to promote traditional animation principles and their application in different mediums.

'Making-of' Video

2009-11-29T17:00:00.000-08:00

A video (created for an award application) that shows the step-by-step progress of two shots. Took forever to resurrect those old files, but it's a nice video to have.

December Screenings

2009-11-24T20:00:00.000-08:00

'Topi' was just accepted to Seattle's 2D or Not 2D Film Festival (Dec 5), which has described it as "the heartwarming tale of how opposites can meet and share in an unspoken brotherhood that defies prejudice, sectarianism and politics."

It will also screen in Florence, Italy, at the River to River Florence Indian Film Festival (Dec 4 - Dec 10) - the first time that any of my films will be shown in Italy.

Siggraph Asia is coming up as well: Dec 16 - Dec 19 in Yokohama, Japan.

Finally, I will be watching the film with an audience for the first time at the Anchorage International Film Festival (Dec 4 - Dec 17) in Alaska (also my first trip to Alaska).

'Best Short Film' Finalist at South Asian International Film Festival

2009-11-05T22:32:00.000-08:00

Topi was one of five finalists for the HBO Short Film Award at SAIFF 2009.

'Best Picture' and 'Best Screenplay' at chashama Film Festival

2009-10-25T18:05:00.001-07:00

Can't believe it!

'Best 3D Animation' at California International Animation Festival

2009-10-08T22:15:00.001-07:00

Yay!

Upcoming Screenings

2009-09-23T21:37:00.000-07:00

California International Animation Festival, Galaxy Theatre, Riverbank, CA - September 27, 2009

chashama Film Festival, New York - October 22-26, 2009

South Asian International Film Festival, New York - October 21-27, 2009

chashama is a 'Festival of the Worlds', SAIFF is a showcase for Indian/South Asian films, and CalAniFest is animation-only, so it's a pretty neat group to be part of.

Finalist at Angelus Student Film Festival

2009-08-21T19:16:00.000-07:00

http://www.angelus.org/winners-finalists.html

Update 9/7:

Although 'Topi' didn't win, I just learned that it will be screened at the DGA on Saturday September 19 (prior to the main screening) and included on a DVD compilation with the winners. Angelus does a really good job of publicizing films, so being included is huge.

First Independence Day Celebrations In Delhi (August 15,1947)

2009-08-18T11:07:00.000-07:00

Recd an email forward with these pics that were taken shortly before the events depicted in 'topi':

Festival update

2009-07-30T23:00:00.000-07:00

Upcoming screenings:

Animanima, Čačak, Serbia - September 9-12, 2009

San Diego Asian Film Festival, San Diego, California - October 15-29, 2009

Siggraph Asia Animation Theater, Yokohama, Japan - December 16-19, 2009

'Topi' wins 'Best Student Film' at Animation Block Party 2009

2009-07-28T09:35:00.002-07:00

Wow! - http://www.animationblockparty.com/about.html

World Premiere!

2009-06-25T14:50:00.000-07:00

Just got word that 'topi' has been accepted to the Rhode Island International Film Festival! The festival will be held in Providence, RI from August 4-9, 2009.

*** Update: June 30 ***

'topi' has also been accepted to Animation Block Party in Brooklyn, where it will screen on July 26, 2009, making that the first public screening.

I'm stoked!

Done!

2009-04-19T23:11:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was my final 5.1 surround mix, and I did my HD layback this afternoon. The layback isn't quite done due to technical problems, but should be in a couple of days.

I had two mixers this time - Paul André Fonarev and David Lankton - who did a fantastic job. One of their best ideas was to repurpose an unused music cue to give the climactic confrontation scene a lot more weight. It was scary adding music at the last minute to a scene that I'd conceived as music-less from the very beginning, but I'm confident that it was the right call.

This is the final version of the scene with the music cue:

Title Font

2009-04-16T21:58:00.000-07:00

I ended up settling on the title font really late (the night before going to LA to do my layback).

Here's some options I considered:

And the winner:

I liked starting with a lower case 't' because it reinforces the idea that the prayer cap is a small difference between Hindus and Muslims. This version of the title is the most readable and clear, yet retains a distinct identity.

The font was something I downloaded, but I ended up tweaking it slightly for clarity. Here's what the raw font looks like:

I do like how the font looks in general, so I used it unmodified in the end credits. The line across the words is similar to Devnagari (Hindi) script, while the serifs and dots have an Islamic influence, again complementing the theme of my film.

New goon line

2009-04-08T21:29:00.000-07:00

Old (can't use because the recording is bad):

New1:

New2:

New3:

(The new recording is me!)

Final chase

2009-04-02T21:40:00.000-07:00

Score 6th Draft

2009-03-25T20:53:00.000-07:00

Ludwig tried adding a flute where the vocals used to be:

Notes to Self

2009-03-15T19:54:00.000-07:00

Towards the end of the production process, it's interesting to reflect on these notes that I scribbled at a much earlier stage when things were not looking so good:

Score 5th Draft

2009-03-14T21:03:00.000-07:00

For the chase cue, I asked Ludwig to take out the vocals and also tone down the part where the goon chases Bir. There's also a new cue after the goons leave.

Just music:

With sound:

As an experiment, I also asked him for two new cues:

Just music:

With sound:

Just music:

With sound:

Score 4th draft: Chase

2009-02-27T20:21:00.000-08:00

Here is just the music:

And mixed in with the sound:

To Premult or not to Premult

2009-02-24T21:04:00.001-08:00

Now, I've known that 3D elements rendered out of Maya need to unpremultiplied before compositing, but I still wasn't sure when exactly I needed to do it.

I stumbled onto a document at work today that explains the rule:

Unpremult before any color correction, and pre-mult after
There's no need to unpremult before filtering options like blur because these operations should affect the alpha channel

Example:

Without un-premultiplying:

With:

It's subtle, but the white 1-pixel halo around the green character's arm is gone.

Score 3rd draft

2009-02-16T22:38:00.000-08:00

New hat cue:

Score 2nd Draft

2009-02-07T23:53:00.000-08:00

Intro v2 (with strings):

Intro v2 (without strings):

Hat Sequence:

Ending v2 (tweaked beginning, and also continues all the way through the credits):

*********************

My thoughts:

The new intro I think matches the mood of my film better, but at the same time, I kind of like the music in the old one better. However, the flute sounds much better in the new one.
I didn't really like the hat cue at all, it seems too flourishy and ornamental. I think something a lot simpler might work better. I'm not sure if I even need music in this section.
For the ending cue, I like the part when the credits start playing, but I'm wondering if the tabla beat is too upbeat. The other instruments sound great to me, including the harp that he worked in.

Score 1st Draft

2009-02-01T19:21:00.000-08:00

My composer is Ludwig Goransson, a graduate of USC's Scoring for Motion Pictures and Television (SMPTV) program. He's worked on the following cues so far:

Beginning:

End:

I had some notes for him, but I think it's a strong start and I'm excited about the rest of the score.

Animation Pipeline

2009-01-23T00:10:00.001-08:00

Here's an overview of the process I've used to animate most shots in my film. After much trial and error, I came up with a hybrid approach that combines keyframe animation, motion capture and crowd simulation.

Step 1: 'Hero' characters - keyframed by hand in Maya

Step 2: Add in background crowd (authored in Massive, then imported into Maya using a custom script)

Step 3: Add in middleground crowd (authored in Massive, then imported into Maya using a custom script) *

Step 4: Add in foreground crowd (motion-captured and solved using Vicon IQ and Motion Builder, then imported into Maya)

Final Shot:

* In my pipeline, the middleground crowd could be either Massive or custom mocap. The tighter the shot, the more I used mocap characters that were placed individually in the scene (which takes ages)

Details:

Three layers of crowd (Foreground, Middleground, Background) seemed to be the most effective at creating believable scenes with depth. I also had to spend tons of time randomizing models, shaders and movement so that the crowd was convincing. Check out this test and this other test to see my earlier attempts.

Crowd simulations generated out of Massive seemed to work best for background characters. The problem with building an entire scene with Massive was that it 'felt' like a simulation (no doubt due to my own inexperience with the software). As a result, I resorted to individually placed motion-captured characters for the foreground and middleground crowd layers which really helped break up the crowd motion.

The other advantage of using custom characters in the FG and MG was that I could art direct the crowd and ensure that the crowd parted at just the right time or that the crowd characters helped direct the viewer's eye to the action.

Although all the keyframes were created in different software, Maya became my central application to combine all the animation elements. This approach deviates from the standard industry practice of rendering crowds straight out of Massive using PRMan, but numerous technical challenges (unavailability of RenderMan Pro Server/PRMan at my school, problems importing Maya cameras into Massive, etc) necessitated changes to my workflow. Therefore, I hacked together a MEL script that imported characters from Massive into Maya, and then rendered everything out with RenderMan for Maya. It wasn't pretty, but it worked.

My, What Long Arms You Have!

2009-01-21T00:36:00.000-08:00

As I get closer to finishing, I cheat more and more. In this case, I wanted to exaggerate perspective and scale, and had to stretch out Sam's arm to make the shot work.

View from Shot Cam:

View from a different angle:

Topi featured in 'Introducing Maya 2009'

2009-01-21T00:00:00.000-08:00

A couple of stills from 'Topi' have been included in Dariush Derakhshani's new book, 'Introducing Maya 2009'.

The still of Bir in the book is actually an early version. The final composite looks more like this:

Needless to say, I'm super-stoked that the images were published.

Making it feel like a 'Movie'

2009-01-20T10:13:00.000-08:00

Sometimes, a little bit of editing/camera work and different character models can make a world of difference to the same bit of animation.

1. For instance, here's a fight scene I shot in an introductory motion capture class applied to generic off-the-shelf characters (the old man is actor Kevin J. Ryan and the alien is classmate John Helton):

2. Next, I created some really basic crowd character models and used a segment of the same motion on them, but changed the camera angle:

(This step is important because it verifies that my models have been rigged correctly)

3. That looked ok, so I spent some more time on the camera angles to previz the sequence as it might take place in the film:

4. Hmm, what about with tighter editing, better looking characters and some lighting?

5. And here's the final sequence:

All through this process, the actual animation on the characters was unchanged.

Composite Breakdown

2009-01-16T14:09:00.000-08:00

I started off compositing in After Effects, but have since shifted over to Nuke. I was reluctant to learn another piece of software at first because I had already had to learn how to use Massive, RenderMan for Maya, IQ, Motion Builder and others for this film. But I'm glad I gave Nuke a shot, because it has turned out to be a lightweight, fast and intuitive package.

I like rendering in layers, it gives me a lot more control in the composite.

For example:

Render Layers:

Character (from multipass render):

Middleground Crowd:

Background Crowd:

Ground:

Platform:

Sky:

Result of combining the layers with no compositing:

Final composite (after color correction and addition of atmospheric elements):

Working in 16-bit color is also very useful, as it expands the range within which you can color correct the image without creating artifacts.

Render Workflow Overview

2009-01-15T22:39:00.001-08:00

The main reasons for using RenderMan for Maya as my renderer are:

Speed, especially when scenes are not raytraced
Fast motion blur, which is important in my film
Good memory management, which means fewer crashes (my Maya files contain anywhere between 2 and 200 characters, and can get as large as .5 GB)
Render-time smoothing (i.e. subdivision scheme) enables me to avoid heavy polygon meshes in my already huge scenes
Integration with Massive - initially, I was going to use Massive's direct integration with RenderMan, but have since abandoned this approach
I'm a geek - I've always wanted to learn more about RenderMan because of its role in the history of CG

Due to time and resource constraints, I can't render everything with all the bells and whistles I like. I've avoided ray tracing because the size of my scenes would probably cause all sorts of memory issues and require heavy optimization. As a substitute, I've relied on RenderMan for Maya's point cloud occlusion, which is a non-raytraced solution. Even with this feature, however, I can't render entire scenes in a reasonable time frame. (i.e. less than 10 minutes per frame as I only have access to 4-6 render nodes at a time).

Therefore, I only use occlusion on the 'hero' characters such as Bir, his mother, the old man, the goons, etc. For the rest of the characters and the set, I baked the occlusion into the respective file textures using Mental Ray. While baked occlusion doesn't look as good as the real thing, the rendering speedup makes it a worthwhile compromise.

So for example, a multipass exr might contain:

DiffuseDirect:

DiffuseIndirect (i.e. Shadowing):

DiffuseEnvironment:

OcclusionIndirect (i.e. Ambient Occlusion):

alpha:

Put the above layers together*, and you get:

Beauty:

Initially, I was rendering out all my render layers (such as the background, sky, etc) into multipass EXRs, but found that it was overkill and I really just needed that extra level of control on the hero characters.

* The actual compositing operations are:

(DiffuseDirect - DiffuseDirectShadow + DiffuseEnvironment) * OcclusionIndirect

** I left out the Specular components for simplicity, but the math is the same as for Diffuse

Confrontation Revisited

2009-01-08T14:07:00.000-08:00

The confrontation between Maqbool and the goons has been bothering me for some time now. It feels a little sluggish and lacks impact. With input from colleague Joanna Griebel, I reedited the sequence.

Old:

New:

The new cut has an added line of dialogue for Maqbool ("He dropped his cap"). The old edit seemed unclear to a lot of viewers, and I think adding this line back in is an improvement. (The line was in the original script, but I had taken it out for some reason that I can no longer remember. Perhaps I felt it was redundant at the time.). Another reason I like the new line is that it is a reference to Bir's "Sir, you dropped your cap" earlier in the film.

Life Photo Archive Digitized

2008-12-16T11:58:00.001-08:00

Google recently digitized the Life magazine photo archive. This means that many of the images from Margaret Bourke-White's documentation of Partition that I used as reference are now easily available online.

http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&q=margaret+bourke+white+india+source:life&btnG=Search+Images

'Topi' featured on VFXWorld + Massive Student Gallery

2008-11-27T19:02:00.000-08:00

Some crowd tests that I did for my thesis are now featured on Massive Software's student gallery. There's a lot of other interesting projects that have been posted there as well.

VFXWorld also did a write-up on student work that features Massive, and included an image from my film - check out http://vfxworld.com/?atype=articles&id=3602&page=2

Outtake

2008-11-02T16:45:00.000-08:00

Sometimes a crowd character tries to steal the limelight:

RenderMan for Maya Notes

2008-10-08T19:21:00.000-07:00

There's not a whole lot of RenderMan for Maya tutorials out there, so I'm collecting all the little nuggets I've gotten from various blogs on this post:

Turn off the default Final pass that contains all the objects in the scene (useful when rendering out multiple passes)
setAttr "rmanFinalGlobals.rman__torattr___computeBehavior" 0;

To generate a shadow pass
Use the 'Occlusion Direct' ancillary output

To generate a multi-pass OpenEXR
In the pass, under Output, right-click and select Create Output->Custom. This pops open a list from which you can select multiple outputs
For 16-bit vs 32-bit, under Extra Output Settings for the pass, select and add 'OpenEXR Pixel Type'. 'Half' is 16-bit and 'Float' is 32-bit.

To create a Matte
Select a Material, open the Attribute Editor and add the custom RenderMan for Maya attribute "Matte Object". This attribute works the same way as the "Black Hole" setting in Maya Software/Mental Ray.

Jordan Reece Halsey's blog has a good tutorial that walks through a Global Illumination example using point-based techniques.

Confused about shading rate and the render quality in general? Check out:
http://www.renderman.org/RMR/st/PRMan_Filtering/Filtering_In_PRMan.html

Cheat Sheet from above site:
"

ShadingRate - should be 0.25 or smaller for final images. Smaller shading rates may be needed for large displacements. Larger shading rates may be needed if the render is too slow, but image quality will suffer.
PixelSamples - should be at least 8 in each direction for a shading rate of 0.25 and should never be less than 2 / sqrt(ShadingRate). Even numbers of samples are more efficient for many kernels. Larger numbers of samples may be needed for motion blur.
ShadingInterpolation - should be "smooth".
PixelFilter - start with the mitchell 4.0 filter. To soften and/or reduce aliasing, increase the width up to 5.0 (fractions are ok!). For a sharper filter, use a custom Mitchell with controllable sharpness (using a RIF plugin for example); or, use one of the recommended standard filters: separable-catmull-rom 4.0, lanczos 4.0 to 6.0.

"

I don't go below 0.5 for my own shading rate, and usually stay at 1, and use the relationships defined above to compute the appropriate parameters for my renders.
--------
Also, when enabling Motion Blur, values of Motion Factor greater than 1 automatically drop the shading rate of motion blurred objects, which may or may not be desirable. I use this feature to speed up my Ambient Occlusion pass because AO is more noticeable when the object is not moving.

8 rules for writing a short story

2008-10-07T11:05:00.000-07:00

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurt_Vonnegut#Writing

In his book Bagombo Snuff Box: Uncollected Short Fiction, Vonnegut listed eight rules for writing a short story:

1. Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted.
2. Give the reader at least one character he or she can root for.
3. Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water.
4. Every sentence must do one of two things—reveal character or advance the action.
5. Start as close to the end as possible.
6. Be a Sadist. No matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them—in order that the reader may see what they are made of.
7. Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.
8. Give your readers as much information as possible as soon as possible. To hell with suspense. Readers should have such complete understanding of what is going on, where and why, that they could finish the story themselves, should cockroaches eat the last few pages.

Vonnegut qualifies the list by adding that Flannery O'Connor broke all these rules except the first, and that great writers tend to do that.

Shot 3 Comped

2008-09-28T10:02:00.001-07:00

Took the settings of the last couple of shots, then added haze and subtle grain, blurred the horizon, added a ramp to the sky, and crushed the blacks a little (composited in After Effects).

Shake has been discontinued, and the compositor that everyone is shifting to is Nuke, but for my film, I'm thinking of continuing with After Effects because I'm happy with these results and AE now handles .iff files, which is what I render out of Maya.

Scene 2 Composite Test

2008-09-26T11:05:00.000-07:00

More Style Frames

2008-09-22T01:51:00.000-07:00

Finally started to render today. Did a quick style frame for fun.

Before:

After Color Correction:

Update - a couple more iterations that I went through on the look:

~December 2008

Final image:

~May 2009

More Texturing

2008-09-07T22:04:00.001-07:00

Added a sky, some trees and changed the gravel texture a little:

Schedule

2008-08-25T13:24:00.000-07:00

Schedules are a great reality check. This is an example of the many Excel spreadsheets that help me stay organized and on track (in theory).

The Crowd column is probably the most useful because crowd volume is the most important influence on the technical complexity of a shot in my film.

Props

2008-08-24T13:07:00.000-07:00

Classmates Thomas Huang and Jake Albers helped me build a bunch of the props and set. Taking a break from animation, I've started texturing and incorporating the models into shots.

In terms of color, I went a little cooler on the train station to help the skin of the characters stand out more. I'll probly warm everything up in post.

Shot 5: Train station + Luggage model/textures
Shot 7: Train station model/textures
Shot 4: Cargo Train textures
Shot 3: Luggage models/textures

First Cut Part 2

2008-08-20T21:26:00.000-07:00

I finally managed to upload the file, so here it is!

Mocap setup

2008-08-18T23:56:00.001-07:00

This is an image of an actor, Kevin J. Ryan, that I motion captured performing some fight sequences (with my classmate, John Helton) in the fall semester. At the time, the footage was shot as a test, but I now plan to include it in the final film (it's the fight between Sam and Manoj, my secondary characters).

The markers are very reflective and appear to glow because of the camera flash. Note that the fingers are not mocapped and need to be animated by hand.

(Btw, Kevin's a great actor to work with, and I highly recommend him for both mocap and live-action shoots).

Sam's friend, Manoj

2008-08-17T19:26:00.000-07:00

Well, they're not actually friends. Sam and Manoj will scuffle in the beginning of the film (the fight that leads to Maqbool being pushed over and losing his hat).

I tried to make him more blocky as opposed to Sam's angles, and messed with his clothes so it'll be easy to separate the two characters. I think he's my best model yet and it's a pity he's only a cameo.

First Cut

2008-08-17T14:02:00.000-07:00

After exactly 7 months of animating, I have my first cut of the film.

Naturally, since this is an important milestone, Blogger won't let me upload the video. But I want to mark the occasion with a post anyway.

While there's still a lot of work to be done on the crowd/animation fixes/lighting/rendering/etc, I'm at a point at which I can get feedback on the film as a whole.

Video Reference

2008-07-27T15:45:00.000-07:00

Video reference is pretty useful, especially when animating scenes where there is a lot of complicated body movement. For example:

Reference:
(with classmate Paul Shepherd)

Rough Animation:

Final animation:

Another Example:

A lot of things change during the animation, but the reference is a great way to avoid starting with a blank piece of paper.

(I also feel that reference video footage will soon be replaced by low-cost motion capture systems. Same idea, but the reference will automatically be available as 3D information in the computer, and then you can either layer keyframe animation on top, or use it purely as a traditional reference.)

Yet Another Example:

Reference (starring myself and classmate Joanna Griebel):

Animation:

Motion Capture Performance Final Project

2008-07-27T12:02:00.000-07:00

Should've posted this a while ago - my final from the Eric Furie/Robert Zemeckis Motion Capture Performance class which includes more crowd work. (I also shot some fight sequences that were not yet reconstructed in time for this video but can be seen here.)

The foreground and middle ground crowd elements are motion captured (the performers are my classmates John and Nahomi, myself and an actor, Kevin), and the background crowd elements are generated out of Massive. This is my new approach to the crowd because I can still art direct the crowd manually and then just give it additional volume using Massive.

I liked where this is going, but my advisor, Christine Panushka, wants to see A LOT more people and some children so I need to work on that. RenderMan for Maya 2.0 supports instancing, so my plan is to create instances of the FG and MG crowd individuals that I already have, giving me a lot more volume closer to the camera without a substantial performance hit (I hope).

Other than that I got good feedback on the look, the design of the crowd, etc. from the faculty.

Ollie Johnston's Notes on Animation

2008-07-26T20:53:00.000-07:00

These are posted on an old Siggraph site, and John Lasseter got them from Glen Keane who got them from Ollie.

Don’t illustrate words or mechanical movements. Illustrate ideas or thoughts, with the attitudes and actions.
Squash and stretch entire body for attitudes.
If possible, make definite changes from one attitude to another in timing and expression.
What is the character thinking?
It is the thought and circumstances behind the action that will make the action interesting. Example: A man walks up to a mailbox, drops in his letter and walks away OR A man desperately in love with a girl far away carefully mails a letter in which he has poured his heart out.
When drawing dialogue, go for phrasing. (Simplify the dialogue into pictures of the dominating vowel and consonant sounds, especially in fast dialogue.
Lift the body attitude 4 frames before dialogue modulation (but use identical timing on mouth as on X sheet).
Change of expression and major dialogue sounds are a point of interest. Do them, if at all possible, within a pose. If the head moves too much you won’t see the changes.
Don’t move anything unless it’s for a purpose.
Concentrate on drawing clear, not clean.
Don’t be careless.
Everything has a function. Don’t draw without knowing why.
Let the body attitude echo the facial.
Get the best picture in your drawing by thumbnails and exploring all avenues.
Analyze a character in a specific pose for the best areas to show stretch and squash. Keep these areas simple.
Picture in your head what it is you’re drawing.
Think in terms of drawing the whole character, not just the head or eyes, etc. Keep a balanced relation of one part of the drawing to the other.
Stage for most effective drawing.
Draw a profile of the drawing you’re working on every once in a while. A profile is easier on which to show the proper proportions of the face.
Usually the break in the eyebrow relates to the highpoint of the eye.
The eye is pulled by the eyebrow muscles.
Get a plastic quality in face — cheeks, mouth and eyes.
Attain a flow thru the body rhythm in your drawing.
Simple animated shapes.
The audience has a difficult time reading the first 6-8 frames in a scene.
Does the added action in a scene contribute to the main idea in that scene? Will it help sell it or confuse it?
Don’t animate for the sake of animation but think what the character is thinking and what the scene needs to fit into the sequence.
Actions can be eliminated and staging "cheated" if it simplifies the picture you are trying to show and is not disturbing to the audience.
Spend half your time planning your scene and the other half animating.
How to animate a scene of a four-legged character acting and walking: Work out the acting patterns first with the stretch and squash in the body, neck and head; then go back in and animate the legs. Finally, adjust the up and down motion on the body according to the legs.

I pasted them here in case the source site disappears.

Music

2008-07-26T13:22:00.000-07:00

I can't listen to music when I'm doing the thinking part of the animation e.g. poses, but I do listen to it when I'm watching the edit. This way I have some internal rhythm to edit to. Of course, this doesn't have to be the final music but just something to set the mood in my brain. The music I listen to varies widely depending on the scene and its emotional intensity/tone. For the more dramatic slower scenes that I've been working on recently, I listen to Zakir Hussain's Kalpana a lot. Not that I listen to a lot of classical music but this track is one of my favorite pieces of music. I would've liked to use it in the final music but it may be too meditative for the film.

Rope a dope

2008-07-22T15:18:00.000-07:00

Often, my scenes have funny intermediate states. Sam's hand grab is particularly good when looped.

Thoughts on Animation

2008-07-22T13:36:00.000-07:00

How has my approach to character animation changed over the course of this film?

I plan things out a lot more. Probably a third or half the time on each shot is spent planning out the camera and poses. Earlier, I'd rush through the scene and go straight to subtle stuff like the fingers, but now I spend the bulk of my time trying to iron out the timing of the main actions.

I also step the keys a lot more, which is making 3d animation seem more and more like 2d animation since I feel like I'm animating keys and holding them on 3s, 4s or 6s before doing in-betweens. It's all perfectly obvious now, but it's taken me a while to start thinking like that.

I go a lot broader on facial animation and close-ups. A lot of my earlier scenes are quite stiff because I was being too subtle. Some of the faces were so rigid that I went in and reanimated them, particularly with Bir.

On the other hand, my body animation is a lot less broad than the usual manic stuff I churn out. Part of the reason is that Looney Tunes animation wouldn't really fit the content and style of this film, but I also try to plan each scene around fewer big poses than I used to. That way, I only emphasize what I want to in each scene by balancing big and small, fast and slow gestures. So if there's enough slow and medium paced action, fast action stands out more, and vice versa.

Similarly, less is often more. By resisting the temptation to do a zany wrist snap or an overexaggerated take, I am trying not to distract the audience in order to give them more time to digest a shot and understand its main point.

Of course, my animation might still not be any better, but I like to think that it's clearer.

Anatomy of a Shot

2008-07-01T17:27:00.000-07:00

I picked a random shot to illustrate the steps that I go through. I'll keep updating this post until the final render.

Shot 53: Goon moves toward Bir
Animatic Duration: 2 sec

Stage 1: Storyboard/Animatic - mid-December 2007

Stage 2: Layout Create Maya scene and import characters. Rough out camera angle/scene composition. - July 2, 2008

Notice that the screen direction is flipped horizontally compared to the storyboards as a side-effect of some story edits that I made during the animation phase of the film.

The character design has also changed significantly. I didn't feel that this character (Sam) needed a beard because the hat is the point of the story. Also, Maqbool already has a beard which will contrast well with Sam's lack of one during the final confrontation scene.

Angle 1:

Angle 2: Roof lines up better with his eyes

Stage 3: Animation July, 2 2008

1st pass blocking/rough animation

More blocking - the hand wipe was really slowing down the momentum of the scene, and felt out of character/confusing i.e. is poor Sam sweating and tired after a long day of killing people? I considered other options such as having Sam wipe his mouth instead or maybe spit, but none of those actions seemed to fit either. So now he's just going to walk towards Bir. By framing the shot wider, Sam doesn't need to raise the knife as high, again making the shot less over-the-top as compared to the storyboards.

Several hours later, this is the final animation. I also adjusted the camera movement.

Since I use RenderMan to smooth the models at render time, I usually do a quick render to preview the animation without paying much attention to lighting.

Sure enough, I ended up tweaking the camera angle based on the preview render - I widened the shot by changing the lens so you can see Sam's leg stepping over the dead body. No one will probably notice, but I like having it in there because it also breaks up the walk cycle a little bit.

Stage 4 - Crowd - November 25, 2008

I usually add in the crowd right before I render, because my pipeline involves getting all the crowd animation into Maya, and this makes the scenes really heavy. At this stage, it takes about 5 minutes just to open the Maya file for the shot.

Stage 5 - Lighting/Rendering - November 27, 2008

I'm not the best lighter :) so everything comes out looking pretty flat usually.

Stage 6 - Compositing/Final Shot: March 8, 2009

Here's where I add dust, depth of field and color correction.

Phew.

Weaponry

2008-07-01T16:18:00.000-07:00

Should Sam have a dagger or a machete? The machete has drawn some strong reactions from classmates about potentially being over the top ("too Arabian Nights"), but more threatening and a lot easier to see. At the same time, I've heard accounts that swords were used in these riots. So I have a decision to make. For right now, I'm leaning towards the dagger because I've tried to shy away from overstating the violence in the film to make it feel a little more realistic as opposed to exaggerated. Of course, using the word "realistic" is a contradiction because I just mentioned that swords were used in the Partition riots, but I need to be conscious of both historical accuracy and cinematic stereotypes.

I'll ask the faculty what they think at a later date

Machete:

Dagger:

And here is the same comparison with movement:
(The difference is more subtle when the characters are animated but there are going to be enough scenes with the dagger/machete that deciding between them is important.)

Machete:

Dagger: