Feb 15, 2011

"The Gospel of the Backwater"

The Animation Workshop, a school in Viborg, Denmark, has posted this year's crop of student films onto their Vimeo page. The school has embraced the model of successful French animation schools, like Gobelins and Supinfocom, that encourages students to work in teams. Like those schools, the Workshop's films exhibit the same strengths (incredible production values and technical craftsmanship) and weaknesses (stories lacking point of view and personal voice).

I haven't watched all of The Animation Workshop's graduation films yet (the program is 3-1/2 years hence the mid-year debut of these films), but among the ones I have seen, The Backwater Gospel is a visual standout. The film offers a fresh look that I haven't seen before, although Luis Cook's The Pearce Sisters could be considered a stylistic forefather.

The Backwater Gospel filmmakers–there's eight of them–made a sincere attempt at stylization, not only in how they textured the characters and used flat lighting, but how they fused that together with a restrained style of movement that doesn't immediately yell out, “I'm CG!” In particular, I love the stylized mouth shapes of the hobo character, which have a nice sculpted look.

Drenched in grim atmosphere, every frame looks like a fully rendered illustration; the effect of seeing the characters move through space so effortlessly appeared jarring at times because my eyes didn't expect to see illustrations moving like this. Terrific use is also made of Flash, which is seamlessly integrated into the CGI.

CREDITS Bo Mathorne – Director Arthur Gil Larsen – Animation Lead Mads Simonsen – Technical director Thomas Grønlund – Animator Rie Nymand – Animator Esben Sloth – Art Director Martin Holm-Grevy – Environment lead Tue Toft Sørensen – Animator

Music composed and performed by: Sons of Perdition

Voice actors: The Tramp: Zebulon Whatley The Minister: Lucien Dodge Bubba: Phillip Sacramento Towns people: Laura Post

Supervisors: Michelle Nardone – Production supervisor Katrine Talks – Production supervisor Jessie Roland – Animation supervisor Christian Kuntz – Animatic supervisor Patrick Voetberg – Editing supervisor Sunit Parekh-Gaihede – CG supervisor Jared Embley – Rigging supervisor Thomas Christensen – Sound supervisor Svend Nordby – Technical supervisor

Consultants: Peter Albrechtsen – Sound design consultant Michael Valeur – Story consultant Andrew Harris – CG Consultant Mads Juul – Animatic consultant Saschka Unseld – 3D animatic consultant Anna Kubik – 3D animatic consultant Jericca Cleland – Story consultant Marec Fritzinger – Design consultant Tomm Moore – Design consultant Lawrence Marvit – Design consultant Niels Bach – Background consultant

(Thanks, Justin Goran)