Website powered by

ISOLATED GOES TO 72ND FESTIVAL DE CANNES, FRANCE.

General / 04 June 2019

ISOLATED was selected, among 17 other animated short films worldwide, to participate in the Animation Nights New York 2019 Cannes Program at the 72nd Festival de Cannes Short Film Corner.

Cannes Court Métrage Short Film Corner Catalogue Du Court

After our Screening

Isolated listed in the Animation Magazine: Cannes Edition

2019 Cannes Film Festival

Cannes, we hope to see you again!

WABUNIFU: INTERVIEW WITH BRIAN K. TARUS

Article / 11 February 2019

We interview Brian K Tarus, the winner of the 2018 Kalasha Award for Best Animation Production for his film, "ISOLATED". We find out more about his journey as an animation artist, his experience of winning the Kalasha Award and his aspirations going forward. 

Read more about the interview here WABUNIFU

ISOLATED: MAKING OF

Making Of / 06 December 2018

The process behind Isolated has been a long time coming. Here is how we made it.

LAYING THE FOUNDATION

The first and most important step was creating the intended story and research. Research of what would be required and what would be used. Sketching and doodling characters and the environment. The Internet and related work from other animators and cartoonists, friends, colleagues; all these were avenues explored for information in this stage.

FROM MIND TO PAPER (STORYBOARD)

Laying down the sequence of events, their linkage to one another and give an idea of the environment, time, camera angle and position.

ANIMATIC

Turning the storyboard into a video to figure out the time for each scene, scenes that would have sound and music, etc. This is very important because it provides a representation of what the final film would look like in the end.

MODELING THE CHARACTERS AND ENVIRONMENT

Changing from mere drawings to 3D characters.

MOTION CAPTURE

This entails capturing movement and facial expressions from an actual human being then plotting it on to the animation characters created in the step above. 

The process is like miming. (Any Charlie Chaplin fans?)



See it in action

Motion Capture: SDL STUDIOS

SIMULATION

This stage involved producing motion consistent to the laws of physics.

VISUALIZATION

The lighting in close-ups was different from the one used in wider shots. The most interesting part of lighting was to adjust the lighting when Mosa (the main character) is in the corridor so that focus remains on him and not on the background elements.

CAMERA ANGLES AND TECHNIQUES

To make the shots well balanced and interesting, The Rule of Thirds and the Golden Ratio came in handy.

THE RULE OF THIRDS 

The Rule of Thirds is a basic guideline which applies to the process of composing visual images.

Here’s how it works:

Divide your framework into a tic tac toe board then place the important elements on the thirds; could be vertically, horizontally or on the intersection points. This rule allows you to create visual flow and lets you tell people which is the most interesting and important part of the scene.

THE GOLDEN RATIO

The Golden Ratio exists when a line is divided into two parts and the longer part (a) divided by the smaller part (b) is equal to the sum of (a) + (b) divided (a).

When applied to art, the golden ratio provides some type of proportion and harmony in appearance. Some legendary art work where this ratio is present is Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa, Michelangelo’s The Creation of Adam, even Twitter and Pepsi’s logo, if you ever wondered what their secret is.

Fun fact: Our brains are wired to prefer images that employ the Golden Ratio.

RENDERING

Rendering is generating a photo realistic image from a 3D or 2D image, in our case a 3D image.

POST PRODUCTION

All the rendered passes were collected in one pile and brought into our preferred program (Adobe After Effects) for post production.

MUSIC AND SOUND EFFECTS

Adobe Audition was the go to for processing sound and music.

The final stage was to make sure everything was in sync, then render the final film.

Watch film here 

A little take home:

Not only was this process fun, but it was extremely educative. We live in an era when we can do almost anything, so feel free and dive into that which excites and challenges you. If you don’t do it now, you never will.

by Tech With Lulu.

ISOLATED WINS BEST ANIMATION KALASHA AWARDS 2018

News / 24 November 2018

Our short "ISOLATED" won the award for Best Animation Production during the Kalasha International Film & TV Awards announced at the Safari Park Hotel in Nairobi, Kenya on November 24, 2018 .


Big congrats to the whole team! 


Read more here Daily Active / Kenya Buzz / TUKO 

BEING AROUND ANIMATION ARTISTS / TECH WITH LULU

General / 01 November 2018

I am lucky enough to work with some insanely talented upcoming 2D and 3D artists. Seeing what they do and observing their thought process inspired me to come up with this entry.

Growing up, my favorite thing to do was watch cartoons. Still is. Scooby doo my favorite, looney toons, the old cartoon network shows. It was all for entertainment at first obviously, but later I came to be utterly intrigued by how they were created and as if the universe heard my cry of curiosity, I began working with animation artists. I think of cartoons as a different world. A world with its own laws, inhabitants and its own creators (human beings). Like everything else, there is a method to the madness. 

Read more here Tech With Lulu.