Inspiration/Motivation
A variety of factors compelled me to create my short film Blink. I was in a boutique in San Francisco when I saw a postcard with a photograph of a bullet piercing an apple. The photo “Making Apple Sauce at M.I.T.” was taken by the brilliant Dr. Harold Edgerton in 1964 using the stroboscopic technique he invented. The technique allowed us to see the unseen, freeze time and produce some of the most beautiful combinations of art and science that we have today. This was the Matrix before the Matrix.

This photo had always amazed me in the past, but this time I was struck by the untold story contained within the photo. “What about the worms? They had no idea. They didn’t deserve that.”

Granted, I have always had deep personal issues with anthropomorphism that sometimes prevents me from functioning like a normal adult. But this stuck with me a little longer than my normal guilt of discarding an orphaned sock. I purchased the postcard, put it in a drawer, and would occasionally let my imagination revisit the unfortunate, terror besieged family of worms living inside the apple.

After years corporate jobs and slowly watching my creative soul die I decided I needed to tell this story. I pulled the postcard out of the drawer, went from full-time to freelance, and started down the path of creating Blink.

Script and Storyboards
While I had been animating and designing for about eight years, this was my first attempt at creating an animated short film. It was also my first attempt at character animation. Needless to say there was a significant learning curve.

The basic story and the beats had been running in my head for sometime. I had the beginning, the end and a handful of beats in between. But there was still plenty of flushing out to be done.

The first thing I focused on was writing the script. The film has no dialogue so the script focused on detailing the actions that would occur with every shot. The script was as detailed as I could make it and wound up being about 11 pages. Here is a sample of a shot description from the script.

Shot 6. Int. livingroom of apple

Edgar bolts towards the closet. Flings the door open and emerges himself in the depths of the closet. Edgar begins heaving stuff out of the closet frantically searching for something. (A toy truck, a saw, a large fish hook (worms size), a sled, a canoe)

After a flurry of objects come out of the closet Edgar Backs out of the closet with swinging a tennis racquet as if though he is playing a against and imaginary opponent. At this point he is also wearing a head ban.

Using the script as a guide I proceeded to storyboard every shot and action in the film. This was probably the most valuable thing I did. Storyboarding helped flush out story intricacies and define production details such as lighting, floor plans and character models. After creating about 130 storyboard panels I used Final Cut to combined them into an animatic that gave me a rough idea on the length of the short.

Production
I spent sometime doing some preliminary character animation tests to see if I could actually pull this off. It turned out that I was able to get the characters to come to life which was extremely gratifying. In hindsight I probably should have performed more tests to get a better feel of the characters.

Modeling texturing and lighting was done using ElectricImage Universe, Photoshop and Painter. This process took a little over seven months of part time work or so. Because the animation in the short is very linear and the project files were relatively complicated, I wanted to have all modeling, texturing and lighting done before the animation was started.

The animation started slowly and moved quicker as I got more comfortable with the character rigs. Unfortunately I think my progression shows a little bit in the final film. When I was firing on all cylinders I could animate three to four seconds per day. Some shots that involved multiple character interaction or props would take me a little longer. The entire animation process took another seven to eight months while working part time.

Wrangling and Rendering took a little over a month to finish. The film was rendered at 1216x720 which has a Super 16 aspect ratio (Don’t ask). The shots were rendered with a Z-Depth pass for depth of field processing in After Effects.

The more complicated scenes had about 57 lights (20 casting shadows), and 1.3 million polys. Frames rendered in about 3 minutes 20 seconds on my Blue and White G3 which was upgraded to a smoking 500 mhz G3 processor. The same frame on the “render farm” (my ibook and a PowerMac 7600) would take about five and nine minutes respectively.

Music and Sound
The extremely talented Mark McCoin of Brave New Audio produced music and sound. The decision to give the film a classic cartoon feel to the soundtrack was made since we were sans dialogue and the characters needed to emote through music. The music was scored over the period of a few months or so.

To Film
DVFilm in Austin transferred Blink to 35mm directly from a Quicktime movie. I sent a firewire hard drive and they returned a 35mm print. It actually took a couple of exchanges to get the print right, but it was somewhat painless.

Film Festivals
I began applying to film festivals in July of 2002 even though the film wasn’t quite complete. Applying to film festivals is a job in itself. It takes a lot of time money and diligence to submit to festivals. You also need to develop a thick skin for the sheer number of rejections you will receive. I guess the film festival process could be an article in itself so... Anyhoo... After a few rejections Blink was finally selected to screen at the Austin Film Festival.

In 2003 Blink screened in over 25 film festivals globally including South by Southwest and the Los Angeles Film Festival. While not a huge award winner, Blink was the “unofficial” winner at South by South West, but was ruled ineligible at the podium because it had previously screened at the Austin Film Festival (Which competes with SXSW) This is was one of the first bittersweet moments I had on the festival circuit. The others include learning from programmers from Sundance and the Comedy Arts festival that Blink was on their very short list, but they ran out of room. Which was flattering, and heartbreaking.

At the LA Film festival I had a brush with Hollywood when a large studio showed interest in acquiring the film, which was quite flattering but unfortunately did not pan out.

Final Thoughts
I started this project to see if I could successfully tell an original story. This story happened to involve animation, which I just so happened to have some of the skills to do. So it was a good fit. (Currently I do most of my story telling through sketch comedy and long-form improv) If I could do it again, I certainly would change a handful of things about the film, but I am proud of the way Blink came out and feel I accomplished my goals.

One note about the animation and pacing. I like my comedy and animation dry and understated. This means that the characters are not popping out of their skin with every action and reaction. I realize that goes against much of what we are supposed to do with animated characters, but it is just a choice that I made.

Technical Stuff;
Total Time:
The production of the film took about 2 years of part time work.

Software:
Modeled and Animated with Electric Image Universe
Textures done in Photoshop and Painter
Post Compositing: After Effects (For Depth of Field)

Hardware:
Blue and White PowerMac G3 (Upgraded to 500mhz.)/ 768mb of RAM/400 gigs of HD space.

Final Delivery:
35mm Film/DVD/Beta SP/VHS