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MAKE: PSISF Opener – Q&A With Andrew ChesworthWe caught up with MAKE’s Director and Lead Animator for “Palm Springs,” Andrew Chesworth, where he was kind enough to share some exclusive behind-the-scenes artwork and info on how the studio’s artists created the piece. The aesthetic of the piece seems heavily influenced by film noir and old Hollywood gangster films. Can you describe the development phase of the piece? Where you inspired by any films, in particular? 101 Dalmatians and Chinatown are the two films that likely had the biggest impact on the creative inspiration of this piece. The rugged, illustrative quality of the character animation in 101 Dalmatians preserves so much of the energy and spirit of the animator’s pencil, yet the animation is so tightly drawn and respectful of three-dimensional form despite the very graphic shapes that are favored. The art direction in 101 Dalmatians also creates a synthesis between the animated characters and the environments, where the world is unified and the characters don’t feel so much like flat images pasted on top of a painting. That animation style seemed perfectly suited to a high-contrast, whimsically bold and gritty film noir. Chinatown is such a stellar example of the genre, with a brilliant muted color scheme that can feel very monochromatic at times. It was a good jumping-off point to find a sort of faded and retro film aesthetic to the production design, without defaulting to black-and-white or Sin City. It would only be fair to also acknowledge the very spirited and entertaining comedy-noir feel of Who Framed Roger Rabbit, and we took several cues but wanted ultimately to have it evoke more of an homage to the other two films. So many other classic figures provided a wealth of influences to pastiche, from Humphrey Bogart to John Huston to the Coen Brothers. The never-made Brad Bird animated film concept for Will Eisner’s The Spirit was in the back of our wishful creative minds while working on this project. It appears that most of the piece is made up of highly polished, traditional animation. MAKE seems like one of the only shops today that continually embrace traditional, hand-drawn animation. How did you determine that this piece would be best in 2d (as opposed to 3d) and can you describe your 2d animation pipeline? MAKE serendipitously became an assortment of highly versatile artists, many of whom are extremely passionate about the art of 2D animation in conjunction with their skills and passion for 3D. We understand that to stay relevant, traditional 2D has to distinguish itself from the look of razor-sharp shiny-smooth look of 3D, and I feel that hand-drawn animation should not look apologetic about being hand-crafted. Feeling the sizzle, the texture, the pulsing lines, despite the artists’ best efforts to control form and movement, is a really pleasing aesthetic to this group of animators. Aiming the sights toward something controlled and sophisticated without running the clock out on tedious perfection is what allowed the project to really have momentum and energy in the creative process, and it only supported the style. We also try to keep the technical workflow flexible and up to date. This is completely paperless 2D animation. It’s all drawn via Cintiq into Photoshop using the timeline feature, with custom pencil and dry brush settings for the linework, painted animated textures and shadows. Just like traditional animation on paper, rough body gesture passes were followed by cleaner keys and breakdowns, and eventually tight in-betweening and erasure touch-up. Production artists straight-ahead painted the colors, shadows and textures along the Photoshop timeline once the character animation for a scene was completed. Everything was compositied in After Effects ultimately. Blood, sweat and tears indeed when into it, but projects this exciting are rare and motivation came easily. It’s hard to say if doing the project in 3D with the same number of characters and environments would’ve taken longer. The production timeline may have been comparable with our small crew, especially considering all the movement and contact of hair and clothing throughout the piece. Sacrifices in production sophistication would’ve possibly happened in 3D, or else some kind of non-traditional rendering style would’ve been attempted instead. This project we only saw in 2D. It just felt right. Credits: Director/Lead Animator: Animation Production Team: Voices: Music: Producer:
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