Nov 29, 2016

46 Artists from 16 Countries Use Altera's Online Platform to Create "Duel" [Exclusive Interview

Artella, a cloud-based animation platform, recently presented "Duel" as a signal film for the CTN Animation Expo. The project was produced on the company's Virtual Studio platform, launched earlier this year.

Duel was created by 46 artists from 16 countries, and Cartoon Brew is proud to present Duel's exclusive online debut with Artella CEO (and co-founder of Animation Mentor) Bobby Beck and Studio Soi's I also interviewed Duel's director Tim Rudder, a character animator:

Cartoon Brew: What kind of feedback have you received since launching Artella? And what changes have you made regarding the platform? We launched Artella in May. When we launched, we did not have the ability to filter project or talent pages. We knew it was going to happen, but we had to draw the line somewhere and launch saying, "Let's get started." Filtering was the first feature we added after launch because it was requested so often.

Notifications when someone comments on your work is a feature that is currently in the works. We have also received many requests for featured projects and talent pages, which we plan to release before the end of the year. Finally, we are also planning a simple, artist-friendly production management tool. We are doing a lot of testing in this area as we want to make sure it is artist friendly.

Even though it is still early days, we are excited that a project like Duel was conceived and completed fairly smoothly through this platform.

How did Duel come about - can you talk about the initial idea and how it was developed conceptually -

Bobby Beck: Earlier this year, I contacted Tina Price, the head of CTN Animation Expo, to see if she would be interested in partnering with Alterra. I was a big fan of the work Gobelins was producing for Annecy, and since CTN has such an emphasis on animation, I thought it would be great to have something like that."

Tina contacted me immediately and was fully on board. From there, I knew I needed a strong director to take it from concept to completion in about seven months. Being a big fan of his work, I contacted Tim Rudder, who immediately came up with a great idea, assembled a team, and began bringing "Duel" to life through Altera.

Tim Rudder, director of "Duel": As for the concept, initially I was thinking of something that would represent a group of people who love animation, comics, and visual storytelling. I was also drawn to childhood imagination, so the idea of a group of kids coming together to imagine themselves in an action movie seemed like a natural starting point. As we developed the idea further, we began to realize that the message was not just about getting people together, but also about 'girls can play too. We felt this was a more appropriate comment on the industry, so we pushed the character of the girl from naïve and timid to one that would take center stage once she appeared.

Can you talk specifically about how the artists involved in "Duel" worked through Artella, giving examples of how the platform was used: Tim Rudder: When we started the project on Artella, we had a one-page script, very rough animation, and some early concept art. It wasn't long before we started recruiting people we knew personally and who applied directly to the project through the Artella overview page. [It's like Dropbox or Google Drive, but set up specifically for creative projects like ours and accessible to the whole team. The template structure provided by Artella eliminated a lot of the confusion that is common in distributed projects.

We used the review tool to do drawovers, make notes, and share what we were doing for the whole team to see. It kept everyone motivated.

Bobby Beck: It was really motivating to see the team posting their work daily on [Artella's] feed. It was great to see everyone involved jump in and offer words of encouragement, feedback, and draw overs. The team was scattered all over the world, so even when Tim was sleeping, there was always someone there to help: ...... I think.

Eventually, Tim assembled an amazing team of 46 artists from 16 countries. About 70% of the team was found through the Artella community, people he had never met before. Despite being so dispersed, it was cool to see the global production team hamming it up. It was as if language and time zones didn't matter. Everyone was productive, always had what they needed to move forward, and supported each other when blocks arose.

Other than Artella, what were the main tools you used to complete the modeling, rigging, animation, and rendering? For the most part, we used Maya from previs to final rendering. Solid Angle kindly provided us with an Arnold license and helped us beta test Ephere's Ornatrix plug-in to develop a hair system that would allow hand animation rather than traditional simulation. We also used Slack extensively for communication, Google Hangouts for meetings, and Google Docs for project management.

Tell us about some of Artella's recent and upcoming projects: We currently have over 180 projects underway in the community. Duel is the first project completed through Artella. In addition to that, we have India Barnardo's project Cat and Moth, which will be finished next year; Jenny Harder's project Mal & Ava; Jorge Gutierrez, the director of The Book of Life, is also directing a wonderful short film; and we are also working on a new project, the film "The Book of Life," which will be completed next year, Carlos Baena's animated horror short "La Noria" will be completed next year.

Artella is still in beta and free to join, but eventually there will be a monthly fee based on the number of staff and roles in the project.