The Pigeon: Impossible Blog

Everyone has been waiting for it… the golden nugget… the one little thing that makes everything click… so here it is at last: The secret to learning animation is that there is no secret.

I know… how Kung Fu of me.

Seriously though, I’ve received a lot of “learning 3D” questions and I never quite have time to respond to properly, so I figured I’d just do one big post and link to it rather than give a half baked answer via email, facebook, twitter, or any other web 2.0 site we’re using. This post also functions as a bit of a catch-all/FAQ for getting started with 3D. I’ll update the post occasionally and put the link in the top right of the main blog page.

Question #1: What software should I use?
This is number 1 for a very good reason. It is hands down the most asked question, and also completely irrelevant. People are so preoccupied with the tools, that they forget that 3D is a skillset. Sure there are some benefits to the higher-end software, but if you don’t know how to drive a car, how are you going to handle a 757? In fact, I’d probably recommend that you start out with something simple. Hell, Google SketchUp is free and extremely easy to use. Sure you won’t be able to make a multi-million dollar film with it, but you can make some cool models and learn the basics without having to deal with inverted normals on a non-manifold polymesh.

Question #2: But don’t I need to know about inverted normals on a non-manhole polymer?
Eventually, yes. But not when you’re just starting out. There is no “right” way to do things so just start playing around and when you run into a problem, see if you can figure out how to solve it. That’s how humans learn. First we scoot, then crawl, then stand, then walk, then run. Show me a baby that can run before he crawls and I’ll show you one screwed up kid.

Question #3: Let me rephrase that… what software do you use?
ARGH!!! You know what, I’m not even going to tell you. Sorry for being so touchy, but this is the one and only question that rubs me the wrong way. Its basically like asking someone “What expensive doo-dad can I buy that will make my work good?” It discounts all of the years (and often decades) that someone has devoted to learning their craft and is akin to saying that you could be better than Leonardo if he would only loan you his paintbrushes. At the risk of beating a dead horse, there’s one more story that makes my point. When I was 9, I wanted to play the saxophone. My parents looked all over for a horn that we could afford and finally found an old Conn. (Basic, cheap, student model horn) I played that thing for 8 years, until I finally started to get to a point where I just couldn’t get the sound I wanted out of it. Before I went to college, we went to the music store and I played every Selmer, Yamaha, and King model that they had. After playing the student-level Conn for years, the pro-level horns were like butter. Excellent range, very little resistance, much more in tune… the difference was HUGE. I finally settled on a Selmer because the Yamaha sounded a bit brittle, and the King wasn’t versatile enough for more symphonic styles like I’d have to play in college. My point is, you’re not going to be able to decide between those subtle nuances between tools when you’re starting out, so just use whatever is available and affordable. Eventually, you’ll hit the limits of what it can do and by then you’ll be able to appreciate the differences between the software packages. (And you’ll be able to take one look at my screen captures and know that I use —edited for content—)

Question #4: Do I need to go to school to learn 3D?
School is not necessary, but it doesn’t hurt. If you learn better in a classroom setting, then it might be worth it. The important thing to remember is that school is like hiring a guide. They can show you where to go, but you’re still going to have to walk there on your own two legs. Personally, I like to go out and wander around on my own. Sure it might take a little longer to get there and I might even get lost, but I also get to see parts of the city that most tourists don’t even know exists. You find the back alley shortcuts that shave 10 minutes off of your commute, and you meet the mafia boss who can save your butt when a big project is due tomorrow and the renders keep crashing. (I’d better stop before this metaphor gets even more off track)

Question #5: What should I focus on when I’m starting out?
In case you haven’t noticed yet, I adopt a very laissez faire attitude towards the educational process. So once again, my answer is that “it doesn’t matter.” Its a great idea to have a goal. Maybe a picture you want to create, or a film you want to make. By attempting to do those projects (and probably failing at first) you’ll do research that teaches you the basics and the different parts of the process. You’ll also find yourself gravitating towards certain things. For instance, I love rigging and when I started out, I didn’t even know what rigging was. It was only by doing a project that I got to try out all of the different parts of 3D and see what I enjoy most.

This is one of my favorite videos that really sums up my thoughts better than I can myself. Be warned that its PG-13 (but hilarious.)
On a related note, Joaquin Baldwin recorded a quick chat with me about how we got started in animation. (Sorry for the audio, we just grabbed his camera and recorded this before heading to the airport.)

Wow. This is a Herculean effort by Alex Roman. Twelve and a half minutes… entirely CG except for a couple of very small composited elements. A lot of people have commented on the obvious awesomeness of the textures and lighting, but the thing I love most is his restraint with the camera. A lot of people get a nice looking CG set and their first instinct is to spin the camera all over it without regards to real-world photography. In this, every shot feels real because he’s using a virtual track/dolly/jib. He even uses the crane’s shadow as an artistic element in a couple of shots.

Plus, he really went the extra mile to imitate the way light strikes a piece of film. In the breakdown you can see the subtle glares and vignette’s he added, the DOF follows real-world lenses, but that little touch of awesomeness that makes it look organic is that he actually used separate colored vignettes to simulate the way light gets diffused as it passes through the three emulsion layers on a piece of older color film. Its sometimes those little details that can breathe life into an image.

VIEW IT IN HD!

The Third & The Seventh from Alex Roman on Vimeo.

VIEW IT IN HD!

Compositing Breakdown (T&S) from Alex Roman on Vimeo.

I hope everyone had a lovely Christmas/Hanukah/Ashura/Kwanzaa. If anyone still feels left out, let me know and I’ll add your holiday of choice to the list, or make one up for you!

In the spirit of giving, we released the full 1080p version of Pigeon: Impossible through FrostClick. If you use the program, you can reach the download page here.

Or for a much faster download that works in any BitTorrent client, there’s a torrent HERE. I’d definitely recommend the bit-torrent as its a high-bitrate QuickTime (885 MB) and they also included a few presskit things which you can simply delete once its downloaded.

One of the coolest things about finishing an animated short, is that there’s really not a whole lot of animators on the festival circuit. Sometimes it feels like we’re all parents of kids on the same football team. We meet up at a festival halfway around the world, hang out for a few days, and then head home until the next “away game.” Before you know it, we’ve seen each other’s films almost as many times as we’ve seen our own.

So, its always exciting when one of us releases a film online and we can finally show it to the people who might not have been able to catch it at a festival. The most recent one is Rodrigo Blass’ beautiful CG short “Alma.” Everything about this is just plain awesome. The story, animation, lighting, tone, pacing, sound… it’s no wonder he’s picked up so many awards and every time I see it I find something new to love about it. According to his website, he’s just releasing this for a short time so don’t wait to pass it along.

http://almashortfilm.com/

Alma from Rodrigo Blaas on Vimeo.

I started this one off the same as the other breakdowns, focused primarily on the structure. However, the structure is pretty straightforward. The act breaks are extremely clear, the midpoint is textbook, and it hits all the key beats of a classic Hero’s Journey. In fact in the commentary, JJ Abrams even talks about modelling it somewhat after Star Wars so its no surprise that the same beats are there.

So, rather than do an in-depth structural analyses which would be very similar to past breakdowns, I’m going to focus on some of my bigger takeaways:

Two main characters. Sure, if you had to pick one, most people would say Kirk, but really, this is a buddy movie. Spock’s arc is just as important, and many of the more emotional moments are centered around him. I’m working on a script with a similar issue at the moment, so I paid close attention to how they handled this:

1. They had a strong theme that tied the pair together. (Intelligence vs. Emotion/Acting from the gut) Every single scene with Spock or Kirk either played these aspects against each other, or showed how they balanced each other out towards the end of the movie.

2. They took the characters to the extreme of these viewpoints. They didn’t just favor one approach over the other, Kirk was all gut and Spock was all intellect. No grey area.

3 They showed how each character suffered because of their extreme attitudes. Kirk got beat up and arrested because he acted emotionally, while Spock spent the whole movie wrestling internally with the dilemma of not being able to express his emotions.

4. In the end, the solution to these character flaws was not to “fix” the extreme views, but to accept each other as partners.. Kirk was still impulsive, and Spock was still intellectual, but by becoming a team the negative aspects of their character flaws are cancelled out and only the positive aspects remain.

5. (Bonus) they managed to express the importance of this partnership on screen through Nimoy’s older version of Spock. I call this a bonus because it could be a mistake to do this in other cases, but because they had the Spock Prime character who was from the future and had witnessed the partnership, they were able to stick it on the nose without it feeling like something that was forced in by the hand of a screenwriter.

Another thing that stood out to me was how they handled a really wide range of emotions. Loss, empowerment, sacrifice, anger, awe, and a whole lot of others. The scenes stacked up in such a way that the audience never spent much time in a specific mood. It changed quickly and made each moment seem fresh by not overplaying any single emotion. A big part of that was the music (which I loved), but you could easily tell that almost every single scene was constructed to impart a fairly specific emotion to the audience. Camera work, staging, sound design, everything went together to support that basic idea of “what is the audience supposed to feel?”

The final takeaway is more of a personal observation. I find myself really attracted to movies that have some aspect of “fate” in them. This is actually very different than my real-life views, but I’m always a sucker for a well written and performed “Do you feel like you were meant for something better?” scene. I have no idea why that idea of being destined for greatness is so powerful, but it taps into something on a very fundamental human level.

Breakdown:

Sequence A - USS Kelvin
1:00 Mysterious phenomenon in deep space.
2:00 Arrival of mystery ship.
3:30 Message for captain to come over for negotiations.
4:00 You’re captain now Mr. Kirk.
6:00 Do you know Spock? What is the stardate?
7:00 Captain killed by Nero.
7:45 The baby is coming
8:00 Autopilot malfunction
8:30 Leave without me
9:00 I have to fight them off.
10:00 Dad drives the Kelvin towards the enemy ship. & James is born.
11:00 Impact

Sequence B - Boys will be boys
12:00 Young Kirk driving dad’s car.
13:00 Cop tries to pull him over.
14:00 Car over cliff
14:30 My name is James Tiberius Kirk
15:00 Young Spock gets insulted by other boys
16:00 Spock beats kid up.
16:30 Intelligence vs. Emotion (Statement of Spock’s theme)

Sequence C - The path to Starfleet
18:00 Spock asks his mother if he should continue his Vulcan training.
19:00 Spock is admitted, but declines because of the minister’s insult.
20:30 Kirk hits on Uhura
22:00 Kirk fights with cadets. Loses.
23:30 Captain Pike tells Kirk to join Starfleet
24:30 I dare you to do better.
25:00 Kirk debates joining starfleet.
26:00 4 Years? I’ll do it in 3.
27:30 Kirk Meets Bones.

Sequence D - Kobiashi Maru
29:00 3 Years later… Nero captures Spock’s ship.
30:00 Kirk is trying the Kobiashi Maru again.
31:00 Kirk and the green girl.
33:00 Kirk beats Spock’s test.
33:30 Kirk is accused of cheating, he addresses Spock.

Act 2
Sequence E - The journey to Vulcan
35:45 The cadets are sent to respond to the Vulcan distress call
36:30 Kirk is suspended
37:30 Bones smuggles Kirk aboard shuttle.
39:00 Shuttle arrives at the ship dock
40:30 Leaving the dock.
41:00 Sulu fail
42:00 Checkhov introduction
42:30 Crew briefing
43:00 Kirk realizes something is wrong
45:00 Kirk storms aboard the bridge.
47:00 Shields up. Red alert.

Sequence F - The Drill
49:30 Nero hails the enterprise.
52:00 Pike puts Spock in charge and promotes Kirk to first officer.
54:00 Space Jump
56:00 Landing and fight
58:30 Drill is disabled, red matter is launched at planet

Sequence G - Vulcan Destroyed
59:30 The planet has minutes, Spock leaves to save Vulcan council
61:30 Kirk and Sulu beamed back on board
63:00 Spock’s mom falls
64:00 Vulcan is destroyed -MIDPOINT
65:00 Spock and Uhura kiss in elevator

Sequence H - Aftermath
66:30 Nero tells Pike about his plan and how Romulus was destroyed.
70:30 Spock and Kirk argue. Whatever our lives might have been… our destinies have changed.
72:00 Kirk is marooned on Delta Vega
75:00 Kirk meets Spock Prime.
76:45 Spock explains the backstory with mind meld
80:00 So you do feel… did I know my father.
81:00 Bones argues with Spock

Sequence I - Putting things right
83:00 Spock and Kirk meet Scottie
86:00 Spock tells Kirk he has to take command and stop Spock
87:00 That’s cheating. A trick I learned from an old friend.
88:00 Back aboard the enterprise.
89:30 Kirk and Scottie are captured.
91:30 Spock relinquishes command

Act 3
Sequence J - Pursuing Nero
93:00 Kirk assumes command. Either we’re going down or they are.
94:00 Spock expresses his anger to his father.
95:30 The crew forms a plan.
96:45 Nero arrives at earth.
98:30 Spock and Uhura kiss on transport pad.

Sequence K - On Nero’s Ship
99:00 Kirk and Spock reach Nero’s ship.
101:00 The drill starts and they’re stuck on the ship.
102:00 Spock has doubts. Kirk says the plan will work. Steal the ship.
103:30 Kirk and Nero fight
105:00 Spock destroys the drill
106:00 Nero warps after Spock
107:00 Kirk defeats Nero’s lieutenant
107:30 Spock flies straight at Nero’s ship. Enterprise saves the day.
108:00 Kirk saves Pike

Sequence L - Singularity
109:30 Block hole is created
110:00 Kirk hails Nero.
111:00 Nero’s ship is destroyed.
111:30 Enterprise is caught in black hole.
112:30 Scottie blows them out of the gravity well.
113:00 Moment of celebration

Sequence M - Conclusion
114:00 The two Spock’s meet.
116:00 Kirk relieves Pike
117:00 The enterprise gears up.
117:30 Spock is appointed as first officer
118:00 Space the final frontier.

With all the PI stuff going on lately, I’ve been a bit behind posting some of the other great things going on in the animation world. Two awesome films have just had their online release.

The first is Chris Jones’ “The Passenger.” I’ve been following this film for years and bought the DVD which I highly recommend.

The next is French Roast which won the top prize at SIGGRAPH this year and has played in almost every festival that PI has been in. Check out the quicktime here.

I finally got a chance to sit down with my friend Michael Cawood to chat about animated short filmmaking. He’s currently working on a short film called Devils, Angels & Dating and recorded our chat for his audio podcast series. It was great to really dig into some of the more niche stuff that might appeal to other animators and filmmakers out there. Check it out!

At the Savannah Film Festival, Joaquin Baldwin recorded a quick chat with me about how we got started in animation. If you’re wanting to get into animation and don’t know where to begin, hopefully this might answer some questions. (Sorry for the audio, we just grabbed his camera and recorded this before heading to the airport.)

And just in case you didn’t catch the post I did a while back, Joaquin’s film “Sebastian’s Voodoo” has been tearing it up on the festival circuit and he’s part of the clique of animators we’ve been travelling the festival circuit with. His short is fantastic and he’s an awesome guy to boot!

After less than 2 weeks online, PI just passed the 1 million views mark! Several different sites had it rated as the most viral video of the week, and I can’t thank everyone enough for spreading the word! Needless to say I’ve been pretty swamped so I apologize if I haven’t responded to emails and DMs, but I promise I’ll get through them all. Thanks again!!!

We just released the final version of Pigeon: Impossible. Just go to www.pigeonimpossible.com to watch it, and please help spread the word. Thanks to everyone for all of the support you’ve given throughout this 5-year journey!