Animation Insider Interview

Hiya,

I've been asked to do a little interview from those lovely chaps at Animation Insider.
The excellent site boasts numerous interviews with a plethora of extremely talented animation artists... A sure way to lose track of time while you're supposed to be making that deadline instead!

Pop over to the site which is headed by the excellent Mike Milo and follows this simple yet strong credos "Animation Insider’s goal is to focus on the blue collared worker of animation; the back bone of the industry. We want to focus on the people in the trenches who make the award winning stuff we love.  Basically if your job is or ever was associated in some way with animated movement, we want to interview you! Even if you’re a big famous hotshot you weren’t always and I’m sure you’ve got great stories to tell! We think everybody has stories to tell from the trenches of animation!"

Well said that man!

To read the interview in full follow this link
http://www.animationinsider.com/2012/11/christian-de-vita/

Enjoy

Frankenweenie storyboards part II

Here is one shot I was very happy to see in the movie as I originally storyboarded.

 The dead fish scene.

It's almost Zen in it's simplicity but this is what I like about storytelling, at times you don't have to have complicated camera moves, intricate and elaborate cuts and editing, you can go straight to the point and give the exact amount of information needed while keeping the gag as strong as possible.

I opted for a straight on, flat composition that framed the character within the fish tank, dead centre of screen. I imagined this composition to work well in 3D especially when combined with a gentle camera move, a Dolly out, passing several fish in the process, then easeing the camera to a stop when the punchline comes in.


You can see the shot at the head of this clip on YouTube

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o70Q00K8Pcg

The following scene, with the dead fish experiment was storyboarded by the extremely talented (AND hard working!) Rob Stevenhagen, the head of story.

 Enjoy!

Frankenweenie storyboards

I guess with the film finally out I am able to post a few (very few!) storyboard panels from some of the scenes I worked on.

I have now had the leasure of seeing the completed film 3 times and for me it seems to get better with every viewing. At first I had to let go of my personal baggage I had with the film; my personal and work experiences. Then I had to let go of all the good ideas that were thrown around and storyboarded that never made it into the film (I always find this process hard, yet always keep in mind I work to aid the director in visualizing his story).

Finally I started seeing the film with fresh eyes, and really digging it for the spectacle it is: a beautifully animated, black & white, 3D horror movie for kids!

A proper little gem of a film.

These random panels are specifically from the third act, when all the monsters come to life and mayhem ensues.

It was great fun working on these sections of the film, coming up with ideas on how the experiments and transformations would work, brainstorming with the rest of the team on how we could kill off each monster.

We would discuss the several passages of the script that needed elaborating on then take our scenes and draw like crazy all the different ideas we came up with- sketching all the classical ways of killing vampires and werewolvesa and ghouls: garlic, silver, crosses, holy water. Then putting a comical or quirky spin on it.

It was also a great opportunity to rivisit all those classic horror films I grew up with back in Italy.

There were a few TV channels that would show old Universal horror films all the time (and plenty of westerns and Laurel & Hardy!) as well as other less classic ones: Abbot and Costello meet Frankenstein, the Woflman vs. Dracula, Frankenstein meets the Wolfman, etc.

It was cool to learn that Tim's inspiration for this version of Frankenweenie came from the same pool of comedy infused horror films, so I got to revisit some of the films of my childhood, while claiming I was doing 'research'!

I was always lured by the darkness of these black and white films, a darkness so deep any monster could hide in it and suddenly seize you and drag you into it.
I always work in black and white, rarely with colour, and my monochrome palette was totally inspired working on this project.
I tended to work a quick rough pass of a scene in Storyboard Pro, then rework panels in Photoshop (CS3) using a variety of brushes to achieve some airbrush effects, wet paint effects and dry brush effect on particular areas of my drawings. I felt this helped get the moods right of some of the more dramatic and atmospheric scenes, especially with the transformations of the monsters.

A scene I most proud of was the 'scary' moment with the dead rat... It made my 8 year old son jump in his seat when we saw it together.
I won't spoil it by posting the board for it now, you'll just have to go see it at the cinema.
And if you do keep an eye out for one of my most succesfull jokes in any projects I ever work on... All I will say is 'SHELLEY'!

I hope you enjoy the film as much as we did working on it.