The documentary
For a schoolproject I worked as a VFX supervisor on the documentary “De Wolken Zijn Roze”, which translates to The Clouds Are Pink. The film is about people who have to deal with depression. Not their own depression, but that of people they love. The film contains 6 minutes of full CG animation. We had to make all these animations in less that three weeks. And if that is not difficult enough, it was the first time we made a full animation film. And I, as the supervisor, had a lot of things to oversee.
The project
To make these 6 minutes, we had a team of 9 people. 3 animators, 3 compositors and 3 people who did look development. We had less that three weeks to work on it. This ment that we had to cut some corners to have a result at all.
First of we had to find a look for the film. The director wanted a water paint look to the animation. But we still had to make the animations in 3d. So we had to make our own custom shaders. Together with the director, DOP and production design we created a reference sheet for our characters. Ze didn’t want them to have to much detail. Also the wall, which plays a big role in the film, had to have its own original look. It had to be fluid-ish, gas-ish and solid-ish at the same time. At last we came to the wall we used in the film. A bit hazy, moving but still solid.
The result
In the end, we can be proud of what we made. And it fits well with the rest of the film. The sadness and loneliness are really obvious. We have send the shots back to the editor. Now its time for the sound designers to do their job and make a masterpiece out of our animation.
I can’t show the final result now. When I can, I’ll post it on this page.