Fashion designer Pablo Londono Sarria for costume design

by - 2012/02/04 4 Comments Artwork, Production

I’m really proud to have triggered the enthusiast interest of the top fashion graduate of last year’s Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam. Pablo is currently doing his Masters in London and will be meeting with us second week of March to discuss clothing and costume design.

He’s been showing us artwork he did for post-apocalyptic comic book as well. His style is amazing, and will add a lot of credibility to our project. Maybe he can do some virtual robot fashion for us too! :)

Rietveld graduation website

http://pablolondonosarria.com

(Images: copyright Peter Stigter)

January production update

by - 2012/01/29 16 Comments Production

Nothing exciting to mention really, but I know unexciting news on progress is also welcome :)

Past month’s first half went to getting an application for the Netherlands Film Fund ready. With help from David Revoy (artwork for Mango script presentation) Anja (budget spreadsheets) and Rob (Sintel + Institute report) I delivered two booklets with about 150 pages of content to the Fund 2 weeks ago. (see image). Film Fund budget would be *very* welcome to lift up the quality of our filming work. Fingers crossed!

The time schedule is still same as well. Starting February 18th Ian Hubert and David Revoy will work here for two weeks on a final storyboard for the film. They then present that to the team on March 3, then they’re all here (apart from Jeremy who arrives 2 weeks later). Idea for the kick-off in the first week of March (3-8) is to make a short film together. Complete from start to finish in 5 days. Will be a great exercise together to figure out what we can do, and what Blender can do even! :)

In the past weeks I’ve also done paperwork for contracting, been contacting potential sponsors and studios, booked flights for everyone to Amsterdam, visited apartments where they can live, checked on where to get good bicycles. Also had a meeting with DP Joris Kerbosch, I’ve already booked in several experienced VFX supervisors as consultants, contacted camera sponsors (want Red epic!), visited greenscreen studio, checked on locations for filming (incl old factories).

The actual filming is still depending on a lot of variables. Current estimate is to rather do it a bit later than too early. Instead of ‘2nd half april’ it more is ‘mid may’ now. Final decisions on this will be done with Ian & Joris here, in about 3 weeks.

So; there’s a lot in the pipeline, as soon as there’s tangible news I’ll post it here immediate. Expect more updates here from other team members, and of course from Ian and David when they’re storyboarding. (Ian asked “can i change the script still?” Yeah, sure! Not for long!)

Laters,

-Ton-

More Physics

by - 2012/01/21 49 Comments Artwork, Production

Here’s a quick follow-up post on physics.

I’ve spent a lot of time doing various rigid body and smoke tests, just to get comfortable with physics in Blender.

I also tried to stress test the tools by using large amounts of active rigid body objects. That last clip with the round church tower collapsing consists of just bellow 10 000 active objects simulated by Bullet via the game engine. Both Bullet and Blender handled that many objects surprisingly well!

Pyro and Destruction 01

by - 2012/01/06 26 Comments Artwork, Production

Hello blender community! My name is Kjartan, I’m one of the new Mango-guys :)

This week we’ve been researching topics that we think will be relevant for Mango.
Sebastian did that awesome Digital MakeUp test, and I’m researching Pyro and
Destruction.

I’ve made two simple tests. One of Suzanne hitting and breaking a wall and the
other is just Suzanne blowing up. Typical blender-tests :)

Continue

Mango Synopsis

by - 2011/12/31 46 Comments Directing & writing, Production

Let’s celebrate the end of 2011 with a synopsis!

“When Thom decides he’d rather be awesome in space than keep dating roboticist Celia, he never imagined he was planting the seeds of Earth’s destruction. Twenty years after this tumultuous romance he has to go back to the Amsterdam scene of his breakup with Celia to save the world. But are a high-powered robotic disguise and a time traveling battle fleet enough to fix a broken heart?”

So we do, in fact, already have a script! For a month or so, actually. As always, it’s impossible to know how much of it will make it through to the final film, but it’s a good start! I was looking at David’s concept art the other day thinking, “If we make a film that looks as good as this, I’ll be more than happy.” But man- after the whole team puts 6 months of work and imagination into it? This thing is going to be even more incredible. The best thing about this project is going to be all the layers of ideas; it’s already happening.

Continue

DVD pre-sale started; help us and get a film credit!

by - 2011/12/23 20 Comments Production

During a Christmas period is always good moment to challenge your generosity! Here’s the opportunity again to show your commitment to Blender, to support open source development and improve our VFX pipeline, to help realizing a spectacular open film and – last but not least – to get a film credit again!

Order the DVD here!

After you order and pay, the credit then is also visible here on the website.

New concept art, by David Revoy!

by - 2011/12/23 29 Comments Artwork, Production

With Mike Williamson under huge pressure to finish work for his client, we managed to find David Revoy to help on producing concept art again! That’s been a big step forward for us. Ian really could use a visualizer to go over the script, and I wanted enough material ready to present a good application for the Netherlands Film Fund again.

Mango concept art

Continue

The Mango artist line-up!

by - 2011/12/11 19 Comments Production

Here’s the four people added to the Mango team!

For the full period:

Each three months:

We also have a handful of artists on the waiting list. If funding goes well… :)

Mugshots, reel updates and short bios will be added to the website soon!

-Ton-

Submission period closed!

by - 2011/12/01 8 Comments Production

Hi all,

Thanks for all the great portfolios :) Haven’t counted them precisely yet – Sebastian will make a nice spreadsheet – but it’s over 110 submissions I think.

For everyone who sent in an application, you should have had an email from me to confirm it. If you didn’t, send me a reminder! We will try to get the final answers for candidates in a week… will be tough again!

Procedure: we will select people who get invited immediate, and people who will be put on a waiting list… we cannot fully predict yet how much time people are available, how much they’re needed, and how much work and time we are going to spend on Mango in general.

More news: Ian has been producing several crazy insane cool concepts (including robotic Anne Franks). His last proposal seems to have beaten all previous ones though… when I read it I felt like a rabbit caught in headlights. It’s tough stuff to picture yet, needs to be broken down and analyzed well. Now… should I tell more? Nah. ;)

-Ton-

Production update

by - 2011/10/15 21 Comments Production

Cool stuff is going on still! :)

Michael Williamson, concept art / story board artist

I’m really happy we found a concept artist to help out Ian Hubert in the concept development phase and during story-boarding later on. Michael has a great portfolio and lots of industry experience. He will working online with Ian now, and can come over for several weeks to help shaping the final storyboards before we start with the full 3D team (for animatic, pre-viz).

Some sample artwork

Joris Kerbosch, Director of Photography

Joris can bring in a lot of experience for us, having done commercial work and completing his 2nd major feature film just last month. We already had two meetings with Joris, he’s enthusiastic and a great match with Ian! Pending further production details and scheduling he’s very interested to join the project as DP. Continue