Behind the Scenes of Freefall - (Escape Studios PR5001: Studio Project)
Introduction to PR5001’s second Short Film, titled “FREEFALL”.
“FREEFALL” is a short film created by second year students at Escape Studios as part of the PR5001: Studio Project (Animation) module. It is the second film that was created as part of this module and was created over 5 weeks. Below are the names of the group members and the roles that they had taken in the production of the film.
Director - Jessa Timog-Santiago
Screenwriters - Rohnak Sharma & Jessa Timog-Santiago
Producer - Sebastian Petre
Assistant Director - Rohnak Sharma
Art Director - Juliana Aczel
Production Designer - Eren Arnold
Cinematography - Anand Sembhi
Board Artists - Eren Arnold, Juliana Aczel
Concept Artists - Jade Davanzo, Muhammad Jowardhar
Modelling Artists - Eren Arnold, Guang Quan Thor, Sebastian Petre
Rigging - Sebastian Petre
Texture Artists - Eren Arnold, Guang Quan Thor
Lead Animator - Alex Maynard
Animators - Anand Sembhi, Ben Swallow, Eren Arnold, Giorgos Konstantinou, Jade Davanzo, Jessa Timog-Santiago, Muhammad Jowardhar, Rohnak Sharma, Sebastian Petre
Lighting Artist - Anand Sembhi
2D Compositor - Anand Sembhi
Editors - Giorgos Konstantinou, Jessa Timog-Santiago
CG Supervisor - Alex Maynard
Script and Breakdown
The first step, after the initial idea was pitched and chosen, was to create a script that would outline the story. The intent was to create a dark comedy centred around a misunderstanding at the top of a cliff that eventually led to a character being sent unwillingly over the edge! The character that would fall was decided very early on: it would be a downtrodden office worker who had come to the cliff for a moment of deep introspection and solitude. A man named Robert. However, many different ideas for the second character were brainstormed, including a landscape artist, and a captivating romantic interest. In the end, the group settled on a chilled-out, lackadaisical base jumper named Colin, who had come to the cliff for some parachuting. Below is the final draft of our script (written by Rohnak Sharma and Jessa Timog-Santiago), complete with an annotated script breakdown describing the assets needed. Due to the fact that the film was a 3D animation, the focus when writing the script was to clearly and concisely convey the animation acting choices as well as the dialogue we intended to have created for the film.
Alongside and after the creation of the Script and Script Breakdown, Art Director Juliana Aczel, Production Designer Eren Arnold, and Concept Artists Jade Davanzo and Muhammad Jowardhar collaboratively generated moodboards for the environment, characters, and props. These moodboards describe the real-world and artistic inspirations that went on to inform the look of the film. While not based on a specific real-world location, the landscape was inspired heavily by the red sandstone of Arizona (the Grand Canyon specifically!) and the way that artist Safary Levante and photographer Frank Krahmer morph these arid landscapes into surreal and monumental caricatures. The intention was to create something based on the desert/dry grassland, but style it in a similarly “larger than life” way that exaggerates the height of the cliff.
The characters were also brainstormed and moodboards were created for these too. The intent was to use their clothing to highlight their personalities. Robert's disheveled shirt and smart trousers suggest that he is a white-collar worker who is going through a difficult time. Conversely, Colin's shorts, vest and boots suggest an active adventurer, while the pun he wears on that vest is indicative of his goofy, outgoing nature. After conversation with the Producer, Sebastian Petre, the group decided that the best way to bring this idea to fruition in the allotted timeframe was to model and texture these clothes onto existing rigs (Rigs: a character or prop created with controllers to pose it in 3D space). The rigs that were chosen were the Apollo and Memnon rigs created by Ramon Arango and linked below. The outfits were developed further by the Concept Artists with these rigs in mind.
As well as clothing, props were also designed including the characters' bags and Colin’s parachute. These were inspired by the bright colours used on real parachutes, and the bags were designed to adhere to the same plan as the clothing - to show their differing personalities.
Art Director Juliana Aczel and Production Designer Eren Arnold worked to design the set. This was done via concept art outlining the set at large, as well as rough thumbnails to describe the specific locations outlined in the scene headers of the script. Many different camera angles and layouts were explored with input from Cinematographer Anand Sembhi. These would later inform the design of the final set. Rough “photo bashes” were also created as an exploration of colour and lighting.
The aforementioned designs, both for characters and set, were vital to the creation of an animatic. This animatic translated the character actions from the script and outlined their “look” on screen. Over the course of preproduction, many changes were made to the animatic in regards to the timing, screen direction and a revised ending that emphasises the comedic aspect of the film, relying less on shock humour and more on slapstick as the punchline, replacing the insinuation that Robert had died with a cartoony “bounce” and Colin’s oblivious praise that he gives, unaware of Robert's peril and seeing him only as another extreme daredevil. The development of the animatic is shown below. Furthermore, the audio in the updated version (and going forward) features Voice Actor Chris Woodworth as the voice of Colin!
While Board Artists were working on the animatic, Modelling Artists Eren Arnold, Guang Quan Thor and Sebastian Petre designed the outfits for the characters, using the design sheets made by the Concept Artists and using a High-to-Low Poly workflow where a more detailed high-poly version of the outfit is created, and is used for to create texture maps that will be applied to a lower-poly version of the mesh. Below is the low-poly version of the outfits, followed by the same outfit with the textures applied.
Props, such as Robert's debt letter and the parachute, were also modeled - though not using the High-to-Low Poly workflow. The backpacks and parachutes were rigged by Sebastian Petre, and the paper rig was sourced from Escape Studios.
Once this was done, Lead Animator Alex Maynard tested the outfit, rigs, and other more complex and bespoke effects needed for the film in order to solve the questions of how these could be practically implemented. the main areas that needed to be figured out were the deployment of the parachute from the bag, the falling effect, and the effect of wind on the clothing, which was suggested as a way to improve the verisimilitude of the falling action. The result of these tests are shown below. The backpack would be rapidly scaled up and accompanied by a “Blend shape” (a tool that animates the transition transition of geometry from one shape to another). The falling effect would be faked using a moving background and camera work. The effect of wind on clothing would be created using a deformer on the geometry of the clothing.
Using the animatic as a guide, Guang Quan Thor created a 3D Layout using a temporary set and tough modeled versions of the characters. This served to translate the animatic's timing and camera angles to 3D space. Meanwhile, Production Designer Eren Arnold modeled a more suitable set, including a large moving wall used for the aforementioned fake falling effect, rocks to be scattered on the platform for added detail, and a tree that would later be rigged by Sebastian Petre.
The majority of the group were also contributing to the animation at this time. Members of the group had filmed live-action video reference to be referred to during the first half of the film. Sourced reference of skydivers and slapstick in cartoons was used for the second half. The development of the animation is shown below.
Once the animation had been completed to a suitable degree, it was necessary to export it to Unreal Engine. Each animator was required to export an Alembic cache (a version of their animation containing only polygon data). Lead Animator Alex Maynard and Assistant Director Rohnak Sharma, as well as several members of the group who were eager to contribute, worked to make sure that the alembic files were suitable for Unreal Engine by triangulating the meshes, and applying materials to specific parts of the meshes. Shown below are render tests including additional assets sourced from the Unreal Marketplace. Below this are examples of the Alembic Cache files as untextured meshes. These would be brought into Unreal Engine and the textures would be reapplied. The shots would then be set up with cameras and lighting, to be exported and edited.
