Production Updated #006: In The Mood For Grief!

Hi Backers,

Thought we'd update you with some more stuff from the production. Above are the lighting reference shots that we pull together to give the art director a sense of how we want the mood and lighting to look for the film. It's a common practice even in block buster Hollywood movies to create a 'rip reel' or 'look book' when first pitching a movie to anyone. It gets across the directors thoughts and vision for everything from mood to shot set ups. There's so much material out there to use from other movies, shows, comics and art that it helps everyone understand your creative vision for the movie you are pitching. 

For us what we wanted to achieve with these panels was a sense of lighting and mood from sequence to sequence, after this is put together the art director takes the storyboard and this reference lighting script and paints his own version of how the mood and lighting should look within the movie. It's not supposed to be an exact copy of the reference - it is only a guide after all - the art director is supposed to be inspired by the reference material then add his unique creative flair to the film.

As you can see from the above colour/mood script the references aren't copied exactly but have been used to convey the desired emotion. For our movie we needed a sense of joy and light at the start of the movie only for it to tumble into a more darker mood as the film progresses. The above colour script was the art directors first pass, it's solid and very emotional but felt a little too primary in colour. 

 After a few sessions between the director and art director the colour/mood became a little more cinematic - which is what we were aiming for, it's a serious piece of film that needs it's moments of light comedy but also needs to be grounded in drama. We deal with forms of addiction within the film so that visual darkness - that is very evident in Luke's work - also needs to be reflected in the lighting and mood of the final film.

The final pass of the colour script only had a few subtle changes made to the previous version but they are important ones. They highlight the bleakness of addiction and stress certain emotions the main character is feeling. Some key shots became darker, others had added light. It's an organic process that doesn't end at this stage, this is only laying the foundation of the mood and lighting. As the production moves into 'Look Development' - where we build actual scenes and key light them - we'll work on the lighting more and finally when the shot is built and animated the lighting artists do their magic to make it look even more amazing as it goes to render. It then moves through compositing and grading to reach it's final resting place. As you can see the lighting within an animated film is constantly evolving and is guided along the way by many, many talented artists.

We'll be continuing to update you over the coming weeks and months with more exclusive production art and information from the film.

Thanks for your continued support!

Luke x Munky x Tiny