Sep 8, 2017

INTERVIEW: How Jorge Gutierrez learned to embrace polygons during the making of "Sun of Jaguar"

"Son of Jaguar," a VR short film by Jorge Gutierrez by Google Spotlight Stories and Reel FX, will have its world premiere this week at the Pixelatl Festival in Mexico.

The project showcases one of the many news stories of animated content being created and consumed. Director Gutierrez, known for his film "The Book of Life" and the Nickelodeon series "El Tigre: The Adventures of Manny Rivera," admits that making a film for VR was not easy, and in fact, a whole new level of thinking in his approach as a director In fact, he is honest enough to admit that it required a whole new level of thinking in his approach as a director.

Cartoon Brew caught up with Gutierrez at SIGGRAPH, where Son of Jaguar was shown in a special VR theater set up for the conference. Gutierrez, who was also recently announced as the director of Warner Bros.' Lego movie spin-off "The Billion Brick Race," discussed the most challenging technical aspects of bringing Son of Jaguar to VR headsets.

Cartoon Brew: What was the most challenging aspect of making "Son of Jaguar"?

Jorge Gutierrez: Well, from the very beginning, real-time rendering was terrifying. We had been spoiled by what we could render for TV and film. So it was incredibly difficult. And the other thing is that in film, framing and cutting is spoiled. So not only was it difficult to make this new type of film for VR, but I realized that all the tricks and all the things that you spent your whole life trying to learn, now you can't use any of them. [Jorge Gutierrez: "Wait a minute. They cut off your legs and you have to run: ...... What is this ......?" I thought. Then he said, "It's a plus that the viewer is in an immersive space. We can't control when we watch, but we can control what we watch. The biggest aha moment for me was, 'Well, how did we tell stories before movies? Sit down. Something happens in front of you. If you don't see it, it's your own fault.'

So instead of seeing the future, I saw the past. So I treated it like a play. Mexican wrestling, the mightiest battle between good and evil, was inspired by the fact that people gathered to watch those mighty warriors clash. So it all just seemed to fit. It's not about looking to the future, it's about looking to the past.

Now, obviously, in a traditional, linear narrative, you can use storyboards to determine framing. But since you could move the camera anywhere for framing, was that actually a great thing here, or was it a hindrance...

Jorge Gutierrez: Honestly, it was terrible. I was afraid to give up. In the animation world everyone is a control freak. You can control everything. We gave that up. The way the framework worked for us was that people would look at the camera, we would look at the action, and we would give them enough of a sign with visuals and sound and acting to make it look where they wanted it to look. And that's as close to one frame as you can get. But even so, people look away. In other words, they are at the mercy of the audience. I have never loved or hated an audience so much. [In creating the characters, how did you go about detailing the models and characters? The big thing for us was to turn constraints into strengths, like in The Book of Life.

So if we embraced polygons and made them part of the story and basically said, "These people are so poor, they can't afford a smooth surface, and we're going to make it so they can't afford a smooth surface. Polygons are part of their world, and their environment is all polygons because they are poor. This way, we get a sense of who they are. Of course, as the film progresses, things start to happen, but the environment was all part of the story. I was born in 1975, so I experienced arcades in the late 90s. And I loved fighting games. One of the big inspirations were these games. What happens when a fighter loses and goes home to his family: ...... What happens after that: ...... That's what I want to follow. So this was a big inspiration for me

When watching a VTR film, the audience can look around and narrow down the details, but from another perspective they might miss something. Jorge Gutierrez: Our idea was that even if you look away, you can still hear the story. When you first go through a new environment, the first thing you do is look around. So whenever we enter a new environment, we made sure that nothing visually significant happens in front of us. So we started learning what people do and built around that. Because the moment people enter the arena, they don't want to see the wrestlers. So the wrestlers don't do anything important.

How did you and Reel FX review the animation and directing work? So I wrote the script and wrote all the interactive stuff. I storyboarded, animated, and at some point I thought, 'This isn't going to help. We just have to get on the device. [Traditionally] we use animation through layers. We cut the reel, do the layout, do the animation, do the lighting. Here, everything is done together. It's like making lasagna all at once. There are no layers. So it's really hard work.

Do you do the review with a headset on or some other way...

Jorge Gutierrez: I either wear a headset or I watch it on a big screen. A lot of them say, "Now, this looks good; it's a good film. It's the same with animation; whenever I do a 2D review, I always say, 'Okay, it looks good from this angle. Everything has to work from every angle.'

I feel like in a movie about wrestling, it would have been easy to do crazy camera moves. But that doesn't necessarily translate to VR, and of course some people get motion sickness; how did you deal with that in Son of Jaguar? It got a little crazier. But we did some tricks to make it less creepy. For example, when the guy comes all the way up and jumps off, you look up and he's actually moving things around. So when you look down, you're in a completely different place, but you don't realize it.

What we discovered, which I think is really cool, is that when he's thrown in the air in the ring, we noticed that the majority of people are looking up. At that moment, we instantly move them to another place, and they're standing there, and they go, 'Oh, wait a minute, I'm in another place. And then we land on the ground, and it was a really good trick.

Same thing with the cuts. Ninety-nine percent of people see the guy thrown and cut there to see another shot.

Finally, the audience gets to look around at all the different things, but did you add any Easter eggs? It's fun, here are two. For "Book of Life" fans, Manolo and Maria are in the audience. And for fans of El Tigre, El Tigre and his father are in the wall of wrestlers.