Antlers, Beats, and Christmas Feats
SHORT FILM
Step into the frosty frontier! This project is a part of our self-development initiative, allowing us to experiment with creative elements we wouldn't explore otherwise. It's not just a film; it's a yearly tradition in the making, where we are pushing boundaries and fostering team development.
Watch Short Film
Santa's Workshop
This project is more than just an animated holiday spectacle; it's a kickstarter for substantial team development and creating new tools.
Stop-Motion Nostalgia
For many, Christmas is all about the nostalgia we hold dear. In the film, we've incorporated several elements that we believe evoke a sense of nostalgia and coziness. We emulate a stop-motion animation to capture that homemade feeling. The scale of things is small – snow made of sugar, the tree just a tiny part of a fir. The reindeers are crafted from felt, clay, and thread. To emphasize the distinctive stop-motion aesthetic, we deliberately used narrow depth of field and utilized lower frame rates on certain things to get the rough stop motion feel, creating a captivating blend of both vintage and modern cinematography.
A Merry Result
Through this experimental project, we not only achieved a result we are really happy with, but also cultivated a stronger, more cohesive team dynamic and learned new ways to solve problems.
We tried a new approach in our character pipeline, by swapping out the animation rig with a render rig before rendering. This keeps the animation scene lightweight which resolves in saving time and frustration, because the scene is fast to respond and loads quickly. We also developed a new tool for seamlessly transferring animation between rigs. An exciting challenge was the implementation of stop-motion hair, where the hair's movement was carefully synchronized with body movements for a more realistic effect.
These new approaches and experiences have enriched our animation skills, broadening our understanding of creating realistic and engaging animated scenes
