Jul 15, 2013

Josiah Haworth, Jungsik Song & Junsu Song in "Brain Divided."

Welcome to the 4th Annual Cartoon Brew Student Animation Festival. Every Monday morning for the next eight weeks, we will be showcasing one of the hottest student animated short films selected from hundreds of submissions.

Today we kick off the festival with the Grand Prize winner, Brain Divided, directed by Josiah Haworth, Jun Sik Song, and Jun Soo Song of Ringling College of Art and Design. The film, which is eligible for a $1,000 (US) cash prize, was selected as the Grand Prize winner by this year's guest juror, Evan Spiridellis of JibJab, and Cartoon Brew would also like to thank the festival's sponsor, JibJab, for their support of the festival. Their strong support of student filmmakers makes this event possible.

"Brain Divided" is a successful animated short on every level. The filmmakers' skills in both animation and technology are impeccable. The value of their work, however, lies in how they have turned their technical prowess into an entertaining and funny film. They take every opportunity for visual humor and entertain us with sharply timed gags. The personalities in the film are particularly well defined; the two human characters strike just the right balance between comedy and believability, and the two sides of the brain evolve satisfactorily as characters in the film.

Read what the filmmakers have to say:

The dating game is one of the most nerve-wracking experiences anyone can have. So we thought this was the perfect story to pursue. The original concept was about two guys trying to impress a beautiful Disney princess-like girl, but it lacked personality, fun, and a more dynamic relationship between the two protagonists. One day, while brainstorming while surfing the web, we were inspired by an animated clip of the classic angel vs. devil shoulder complex. The exchange between the angel and the devil on his shoulders was always hilarious, and we wanted to recreate the comedy in our own film. However, we knew that this concept had been done many times before and we wanted to put our own spin on it. What we came up with was the idea that "angels" and "demons" are actually the "left" and "right" sides of the brain fighting for control. We thought it would be great if we could literally get inside their heads and see the physical battle going on in their minds and its effect on the protagonist. This gave us what we wanted: a fun, simple story and a wide range of character animation for us to play with.

All animation and lighting was done in Autodesk Maya 2013 using the Renderman plugin in a linear workflow, although all four characters were rigged using The Setup Machine (TSM), Jeremy Cantor made it a bit more versatile. Post-processing, compositing, and effects were done in NukeX and edited in Adobe Premiere. Adobe Photoshop allowed us to tweak individual frames and test lighting ideas. All software and powerful HP workstations we used were provided by Ringling, and we also used the school's powerful render farm.

One of the biggest challenges was writing and creating great comedy while allowing the story to flow seamlessly. Because our production was dialogue-driven, we needed to write a script that was witty, charming, and realistic. It was very difficult because I had absolutely no experience in screenwriting. It was a constant process of trial and error as we tried to come up with a fun slapstick comedy, while at the same time navigating a variety of characters. It took our storytelling and screenwriting abilities to another level. Our film was also one of the longest films to come out of Ringling, so keeping everything organized and on time was a daunting task. There were about 90+ shots, with animation and lighting split between the three of us. But we had to learn how to use Nuke to make the film visually better. There were many sleepless nights as we each had to complete 30 shots while learning new software.

The most important thing we learned from the film was how to streamline the story and trust our team. Often shots were too long or too complex. This might mean removing unnecessary pauses or changing the acting altogether. But by making these changes, we were able to create a well-paced film with all the entertainment and character we wanted. Even though we had never worked with the Ringling team before, we went into this film with confidence that we could pull it off and hopefully make it interesting. Making the film was extremely difficult and stressful, but with the help of trust, constant communication, and a 24-hour Denny's, we learned how important teamwork is in completing a film.

We drew great inspiration from actors such as Jim Carrey in "The Mask" and Eddie Murphy in "Dr. Dolittle," as well as animated characters such as Pepe le Pew and Kronk in "Emperor's New Groove." All of them had elements that we loved to watch and wanted to emulate in our films. A lot of inspiration also came from the students around us and the great work they are doing on their films. It was a driving force to make our film the best it could be. The professors were equally inspiring and gave us a tremendous amount of feedback and great advice.

Josiah Haworth My goal is to make character animation at a major studio or an up-and-coming studio. Of course, Disney, ReelFX, and Bluesky are high on that list. Give me a mouse, Maya, and a project, and I'm good to go.

Joon Soo Song: I want to be an animator. Disney, Dreamworks, Pixar, Blue Sky, Blizzard, Blur, Laika, Reel FX, Insomniac, the list goes on and on. As long as I'm making animation, I'm happy.

Joon Shik Song: I would love to be a director or animation supervisor at Disney. If I'm lucky, I get to hang out with Mickey Mouse and talk about my next feature film. Like when I used to be at the Ringling, we would take coffee breaks late into the night.

Josiah Haworth: personal website and animation reel

Jun Su Song: animation reel

Jun Sik Song: animation reel

Brain Divided Facebook page