The Untold Story

London office. Well past eleven o’clock. And I was still at the studio.

It was no picnic. I was going through an emotional roller coaster. Angry, frustrated, annoyed. I was working on special effects for the film “Wanted” with Angelina Jolie. It was a scene with a train going down a cliff.

How symbolic!

The smoke simulation was going slow. It was a technical challenge. I felt like I was behind schedule and to top it off the render times were extra long and all I could do was wait and doodled in my sketch book.

My only respite was the music in ears and the pencil in my hand.

I was plugged into my ipod. It was way way back in the olden days can you tell? Suddenly a tune came up. It was perfect. Upbeat and uplifting. In a matter of seconds a short animation film played it self out in my head. Inspiration!

The opening scene was a forest. Misty and wet. The main actors were a caterpillar and a looper. Competing. A race to the death.

All of a sudden I was juiced. I stayed at work later then usual that night and sketched fiercely between smoke simulations. The next weekend I visited regent park for some up close shots of my premise. I had a new Canon and it was so much fun playing with micro shots.

I resumed my sketching of the full storyboard. Two opponents, drama, competition, violence, misfortune and blood. All on the backdrop of a Japanese style game show.

I sketched and re-sketched the storyboard for days (the writing is in Hebrew by the way). After that I modeled and rigged the main Caterpillar in Houdini. On the weekends I textured and look developed the main hero. I stayed up late with determination to create a nifty little short.

This story doesn’t have a happy ending folks.

Alas the project proved to be bigger than my tiny five year old desktop could withstand. Who am I kidding. It wasn’t just that. I got over the initial inspiration lightning bolt.

Long long minutes of rendering  an ambient occlusion pass sealed the fate of this passion project. One scene was rendered.

One! *sigh*.

I never finished the animation.*sniff*

This is the only documented proof of my efforts. Funny but true. There was no final result worth celebrating, but I damn enjoyed the process!