Catcher (in the Rye)

A rye field, children playing near a dangerous cliff all elements of a short film with a timeless theme, created using MAXON CINEMA 4D.

A simple geometric character. The long, stylized beard and a bent posture make it clear that this is an old man. This short film follows this character without narration on a strange journey. It appears to be a search for meaning, which first leads the old man to a steep rock face, then to a seemingly endless rye field and finally to a cliff. Here the old man is witness to children running out of the field and jumping over the cliff, which he tries to prevent, but in vain. But the children transform during their fall. They transform into adults and the old man realizes that he is witnessing the cycle of life from birth to death, from childhood and youth to becoming an adult and aging

For more than 50 years now, J.D: Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye has been one of modern history's most influential works and also made an impression on artist Fabian Koppenhfer. As he was reading the book for the second time he had the idea of creating a short film for one of the book's key passages the passage that gave the book its title. Fabian created a stylized scenario in which equally stylized characters interact. He first created production sketches, which were then built in CINEMA 4D. Creating the complex dynamic system for the rye field was one of the first major challenges with which Fabian was confronted. The field had to be thick with rye but the characters also had to be able to interact with it. Fabian used CINEMA 4D's Hair feature and function instances, which allowed the plants to be bound to simulation guides. The part of the field around a character was filled with rye plants that interacted with each other dynamically. Parts of the field were then duplicated in AfterEffects to fill the field's overall surface.

Total render time had to be kept to a manageable amount, which was no easy task considering the great number of plants involved. The figures of the old man and the children were animated using CINEMA 4D's new character tools. The old man's beard was connected to the skeleton using dynamic inverse kinematics. Keyframes were used to fine-tune the dynamic simulation so the beard behaved just as Fabian wanted it to.

The character, dynamics and hair simulation tool made it possible to achieve very precise results for this project, recalls Fabian. The efficient interface and functions such as Multi-Pass Rendering, the seamless file exchange with AfterEffects and the outstanding renderer made it possible for us to concentrate on the creative process and not worry about technical details!

The effort was well worth it: Catcher is an impressive short film that has garnered much acclaim. Just three days after posting the film on the Vimeo video platform it was named staff pick.

The Video on VIMEO:

www.vimeo.com/56144316#

Website Fabian Koppenhfer:

www.fabiankoppenhoefer.com

LINK:	http://www.maxon.net/en/news/singleview-default/article/catcher-in-the...
	See more stories from maxon

Most recent headlines