It’s beginning to be a tradition that students from the HKU in The Netherlands deliver top notch graduation movies. This is no exception.
“Innuendo” gives us a kaleidoscope of strangely sensual imagery while telling the story from micro to macro of an entire planet that works itself up to a climax only to die off again in the end.
Technical Director Dieuwer Feldbrugge:
At the end of 2013, we came together to develop the concept for our graduation film. We were quickly convinced of Tim de Haan’s vision and were eager to start.
The basic idea was to show a living planet. Our planet can be sensual, and it is also subject to the same cycle of reproduction / sexuality that animals are subjected to. We hope it will encourage the viewer think about nature and how we live in it.
For us, it was a good exercise in the use of metaphors and symbolism in cinematography. During our training at the HKU, we are mainly taught how to create character-driven narratives. So to do this movie without the use of characters was new and exiting.
After tinkering with the concept and storyboard for three months, we used another five months of full-time production to come to the end result.
One of the biggest technical hurdles we faced was making the breathing clouds in the establishing shot. In the beginning, we were planning to simulate them, but from my own experience with simulating smoke, I learned that it would take a lot of time and energy to make it as detailed as it is now.
So we decided to shoot it with dry ice. Kjeld Slingerland built a miniature set of mountains, and we filled that up with the cold fog from the dry ice. Our friends at IQ-Media were kind enough to lend their studio space and Red One camera to us. This ultimately saved us a great deal of time!
We modeled most of the project in Mudbox and then rendered in Maya with V-Ray. The animation of the flowing cells was created in 3DS Max using Thinkbox Krakatoa and the late Naiad to simulate the movement. Eventually, we composited everything in Nuke.
Besides the fact that everyone was a generalist in the project and we all had our own things to models and texture, we still had tightly divided responsibilities. Tim de Haan was Executive Director, Editor and Colorist. Kjeld Slingerland was the Coordinator and Animator. I myself was the Supervisor, Lighting TD and Compositor. Louise van Putten was the Art Director and Niels Bosch rigging TD.
Credits
:
Tim de Haan – Director, Editor, Animator, Generalist: vimeo.com/timdehaan
Kjeld Slingerland – Coordinator, Animator, Generalist: kjeldslingerland.com
Dieuwer Feldbrugge – Supervisor, Technical Director, Lighting and Compositing: dieuwer.com
Louise van Putten – Art Director , Generalist: vimeo.com/louisevanputten
Niels Bosch – Technical Director, Generalist: vimeo.com/user3556198
Music and sound design by:
Steven Thans: soundcloud.com/monkeymansion