This is the last set of the new film, the clock shop. I’ll need to add a few more details before shooting, but for now what a relief to finish all the sets!
The construction went fast, it was only less than 2 weeks.

I wish I could live here. (Well, I actually prefer the bakery over this clock shop)
We put so much care into these miniature houses that they are far more thought-out and decorated than our own house.

Our hope is that once we move, we will slowly put more care into our surroundings, which will happen soon. Because starting June, we are moving into a new studio which we will share with our friend, Rachel from Red Prairie Press ! So excited! I have been missing the artist studio environment since I left the Netherlands so when Rachel asked if we want to share the studio space with her, I did not even have to think for a sec. (Animation talk: I only thought about it for only 1 frame, and did not need 23.976 frames)
Pictures will come soon when we’re settled in.

Back to set building! One set a week!
After a long period of staring at computer monitors, it’s so nice to physically touch and smell materials.
These are all minor sets for 1-3 shots. So not much detail compare to other sets.

A peak into a little bedroom of the baker.

Plump Lady’s living room.

Oulala. Loving time!

Now, moving on to the final set which is the clock shop. I’m having mixed feelings of excitement to finish set-building and sad that it’s the last one since it’s my favorite part of making a film.
Anybody in Baltimore area who wants to join me making 50+ miniature non-working clocks….?

I’ve noticed that it’s been awhile since I posted work-in-progress from our new film.
Are we even working on the film? Yes we are. In fact, working VERY hard!
Since September, it’s been mainly character animation in Cinema 4D.
We are happy to say that 95% of the film is animated!
But it looks like this

We call this “Film Puberty”. It’s this awkward, middle stage that you don’t want to show to anybody.
Remember when you were in middle school and you just wanted to hide out in your bedroom?
As you can see, without the texture, final render, background and atmosphere, it doesn’t feel right.
With all the rig controls (colorful boxes, arrows and lines), the scenes feels so mechanical.
In a way, the animatic stage had more emotion.
So we have 13.5 minutes of this awkward and cold stage of the film.
That’s why I haven’t updated anything.

And this is how it will look.

Another one.
Before

After

Max has been working on the final lighting, rendering and compositing and sequences are starting to look like how it should be.
I will be back on making the last 3 sets next week. I’ve been in front of the computer for the past 6 months that I’m excited to be back on working with my hands. Soon enough, we’ll pass the puberty stage and have more mature parts.

While in Japan at my parents house, I found a drawing I did in 2nd grade.
There was a bakery called “Morning Cloud” near by that I absolutely loved. It had a French Country style decoration and some clay miniature breads on walls and shelves. I just loved the atmosphere, smell and all the details.
Well, what a strange coincidence that we are making a film that takes place in an European bakery?
Or did I happen to do a concept art when I was 7 years old?

Max is living in Baltimore ( he’s a full-time animation professor at Maryland Institute College of Art) and I am still in the Netherlands working at NIAF
How do we work with a huge ocean in between us?

We’ve designed our production so that during the 4 months of being separated, everything could be done digitally. Max has been modeling & texturing the remaining characters, and he edits animated shots that I finish into the animatic. I’ve been animating characters in Cinema 4D (3D computer program).
There is no set building, stop-motion or compositing which requires both of us to be in the same studio.

Luckily, we live in a digital age where files can be shared easily via internet.
Here is a glimpse of how we organize making a film from separate places.

We use SKYPE and DROPBOX. You can share folders and files on dropbox so we basically upload everything we do there.
When there is 200 + shots, there are a lot of files to share. Project files, hardware render movies, edit movies, full-render files, updated animatic, etc.

1) CONVERSATION
This serves as a way to converse about each shot.
Max is blue and I am orange.
With each shot, a lot of back-and-forth comments are written. When I am done animating, I usually have some questions and Max will have some answers and also some fixes. Once the cut is in the edit, more likely there are additional fixes.

Most often, there are 5-10 shots in progress. Some in early stages and some in late stages for minor tweaks. It gets confusing with all the shot numbers. When the shot is completed then it’s deleted from the list, therefore there are only work-in-progress shots are listed on the “conversation”.

2) PRODUCTION BINDER
This is something we’ve used in every production.
Each shot is marked with the difficulty of the shot, schedule and stages of the production in color.
green=ready
pink= current
orange= pending approval (from eachother)
purple =redo
blue=done

Also, there’s a section to keep notes of the start and end frame numbers and things to remember for stop-mo or compositing like “keep the oven door open.”
When you have over 200 shots in a production, you do need to organize each shot clearly for everybody to understand immediately.

3) SCHEDULE
Organized by category and month. This changes often, but it’s good to know the deadline for each month and for the project. With a project that takes over 2 years, it’s easy to forget how important each day can be. Once you fall behind, the production can be delayed 3-6 months. Knowing the overall schedule, we are able to push ourselves to finish everything on the list.

4) MAX FOLDER / RU FOLDER
This is simple, I upload all files for Max to review in “To Max” folder. He does the same in “To Ru” folder.
First thing in the morning, we check our folders and read “Conversation” to understand what the next step is for the day.

This system worked out much better than we thought.

Halfway through our newest production, we moved from the Netherlands to Baltimore. Ru planned the set construction so that our largest miniature could be disassembled and fit into regular cardboard boxes.
There were only a few bruises/breaks during the move and it makes the village look all the more rustic.

The music is a piano temp track from our new film by the super talented composer, Bram Meindersma (audiobrand.nl/)

We finally finished the village for our short film.
This took about 5 weeks in total.
There are still a few more things to do but the final touch up needs to happen in Baltimore.
* There is a way to fold all this and turn into a smaller package. Another blog post to come…

Let me show you some details.
Here are some shops that have the most screen time.

Bike shop

Fish market

Close up of fish market

Clothes shop

Groceries

Close up of veggies

In the alley way is a night club “De Nacht” which exists in Tilburg.
This is for Dexter fans out there…

Quilt shop. Also exists in Tilburg called Quilt it & Dotty.
It’s a lovely shop that inspired the bakery.

Close up… 95% of the fabric was purchased there. Everything there is so cute and lovely.

Here are some pictures of us working.
Our great friend, Will Krause came to Tilburg for a few days and he helped us out making some bikes and bike parts.

Let’s walk through “behind the scene” of the construction.

Phase 1
April 23 (mon) to May 7 (mon)

One side of the village. The construction and color scheme were figured out.

Phase 2
May 14 (mon) to May 22 ( tues)

The other side of the village.

Phase 3
July 8 (sun) to July 22 (sun)

All the details were added here. It’s the most fun part of the set building!

PREPARATION

It’s important to keep all the pieces organized!
More organize = efficient = speed = EVERYTHING IS DONE!

In order to “age” the village, we experimented with “used coffee”. Luckily everybody at NIAF drinks coffee all the time that I had unlimited supply of used coffee.
I love how it smells good, looks great, and cheap.

Roof and tiled floors were super tedious.
I cut up so many little pieces then they were assembled back into a big piece again.

The wonderful Tatiana Gomberg flew in to Amsterdam from New York to play the main role in our short film.
Bram (composer / sound designer) was in charge of the recording.

Lots of laughing and lots of “let’s try this”.
Bram, Max and I had a clear vision of what we wanted and it was interesting to see how our thoughts blended in through Tatiana’s voice acting.
The temp VO was my voice. The read was cold and dry. It wasn’t portraying the character well. Whereas Tatiana’s acting has range in emotion from funny to sensitive. I’m so happy she is helping us out. SHE IS SO GREAT!

A week of her stay and 2 days of VO recording ended well.
So we went through a stroll in the farm are in Tilburg to enjoy the sceneary.

Thank you Tatiana & Bram.
Now we just have to keep animating until we’re rejoined again to do a pick up VO in half a year.