Evening At The Lake

I took this photo while on vacation at Lake Wateree a couple of weeks ago. Subject is my brother Samuel fishing and our dog Martha waiting for the fish.

I love shooting RAW--it gives you such control over the final product. With the camera I was using, it would be very hard to get that picture under the right light conditions, so I actually shot it when it was a little lighter outdoors and adjusted it in post. It was not staged, though--they spent about 20 hours over the week fishing off the dock!

IHS,
John Calvin Young

Big Buck Bunny Released Online!

At long last, "Big Buck Bunny", the short-film animated result of the Peach Open Movie Project under the auspices of the Blender Foundation, has been released online. The Blender Foundation owns the source code and facilitates development of the open-source CG software package Blender. The Open Movie projects were designed to get a number of volunteer animators and filmmakers together to make a film specifically to showcase Blender's capabilities. If the capabilities or features are not present, they are typically developed and added during the project.

Although the organization of the project has been interesting, the quality of the finished project is the most intriguing point for me. Blender has come a long way--I've been using it since 2005, and its capabilities have expanded by leaps and bounds (no pun intended), especially in furs and particles, which are showcased in this film. This software has opened opportunities for many young animators who could not otherwise have made the step into professional-level animation. Some projects are even specifically using Blender for scalability, as it is freely available, such as The Filthy Spoon Project, modeled and designed entirely in Blender.

P.S.--The entire production files are also available, as well as DVDs for sale on the site. In the spirit of open-source software, though, the film is downloadable in up to 1080p resolution for free.

In other notes, the composer for the film, Jan Morgenstern, has released the whole score as a freely downloadable album.
Very interesting for those who might be scoring other short films. A full feature score is very interesting, but scoring a short film (like shooting one) is a rather different art.

Very, very interesting project. And I believe it was done with 7 lead animators. I think a project like this could very easily be done by one or another of the online groups, like CF.org for example.

In His Service,
John Calvin Young