
May 31st, 2011
Montreal Facility Creating Canadas First Stereoscopic Animated Feature
Modus FX has embarked on an ambitious new stereoscopic 3D journey an 80-minute animated film called Sarila. Directed by Nancy Florence Savard, Sarila is a compelling coming-of-age story set amongst the Inuit people of the Arctic. Starring Christopher Plummer (The Sound of Music, The Last Station), Genevive Bujold (Anne of the Thousand Days, The Trotsky), Rachelle Lefevre (Twilight, Barney's Version), Dustin Milligan (Beverly Hills 90210, Slither) and Natar Ungalaq (The Fast Runner) the production will be the first feature-length stereoscopic animated film created in Canada.
For director Savard, the film has been a labour of love for the past ten years. Sarila tells the story of three young Inuit who strike out on their own in order to save their clan from starvation, she said. This is an inspirational story, full of hope. It shows young people facing daunting challenges and, through the experience, taking control of their lives. Their world is exotic to us but their experience is universal.
Written by acclaimed childrens author Roger Harvey and Pierre Tremblay, an expert in Inuit culture, and adapted by Paul Risacher, the film uses authentic settings and indigenous mythology in order to capture the world of the Great White North.
The story draws on Inuit legends from different regions of the arctic, said Savard, but then it moves beyond those traditional archetypes to tell a new story.
Sarila invites the use of stereo 3D, explained Savard. The characters travel across the tundra, through snow storms, and meet strange, semi-mythical characters along the way. The immersive quality of the stereo 3D draws the audience into their odyssey.
Modus FX came on board as a investment partner late last year, and began working with the film's art director Philippe Arsenault Bussires in January to translate his water color concept art into 3D geometry that can be rendered stereoscopically. The result is an original, stylized aesthetic for stereo 3D.
In our VFX work we usually mimic reality, but with this project we are creating something different, said visual effects supervisor Eric Clment. Our goal is to capture the essence of the original concept art. We want to push the look of stereo 3D, instead of going in the photoreal direction that a lot of current animation is doing.
Working together with the art director, the texture team at Modus developed a technique for mixing colors with a custom brush in Photoshop. Surfaces, such as the characters clothing, for example, blend a watercolor look with photographic references to create the final result.
Modus currently has a team of 85 artists on the project, many of whom were involved in the facilitys recent March of the Dinosaurs project, a 90-minute animation for National Geographic and The History Channel, which was, coincidentally, also set in the Arctic. Sarila includes 950 shots, so the 15-month production schedule requires an efficient pipeline and relies on several key Modus-developed technologies.
Setting the Scene in the Arctic
The vast and desolate landscapes of the Arctic play an important role in the narrative and atmosphere of the story. Since the film is in stereo 3D, the process of creating these landscapes is more complex than with traditional matte painting. The old-school tricks of doing 2D cheats' in compositing, like doing a matte painting to extend the background those don't work in stereo, said Clment. You need to include the geometry with the images.
To solve the problem, the Modus team has developed a pipeline for creating 3D maps of matte paintings. The spatial coordinates for each landscape are built in Softimage XSI, allowing the team to create and render left and right eye cameras. The shots are then assembled in Nuke, again using custom tools developed at Modus. This way of building our 3D geometry is very effective for working out backgrounds, such as skies, explained Clment.
Another challenge for stereo 3D animations is the volume of data to be managed. Modus has developed a number of technologies for this, including the Modus FX SceneBuilder. This tool enables artists to load subsets of a scene, in order to work on one particular element without the overhead of the whole scene. The film includes 30 different environments, so the MFX SceneBuilder has become a critical tool in keeping our shot pipeline moving efficiently, noted Clment.
Modus has also turbocharged their infrastructure by implementing the new Arnold rendering system. It's amazingly fast in terms of motion blur, subsurfaces and other computationally-intensive processes, said Clment. This required creating a new compatible shader library, but the faster render times have easily justified the extra effort. We keep finding ways to get more out of our pipeline, he added the result is that our artists can focus on the art, and dont have to think about the technology.
Rigging Done Right
Sarila has a total of 35 talking characters, including people and animals, so rigging and lip-synching are another area where an efficient workflow is critical. We have bipeds, quadrupeds and birds to animate, said Clment, so we created a system that would allow our artists to rig their characters in different shots without having to start from scratch each time they started on a new scene.
The Modus FX AutoRigger, developed specially for Sarila, allows artists to generate biped and quadruped bones structures. With the MFX AutoRigger artists can apply movement patterns to their characters automatically and then manually adjust the movements for each shot. For example, for a sled pulled by five dogs, we want our animator to be able to start with the basic running movements and refine the work from there, explained Clment.
The film is bein
Most recent headlines
10/02/2025
With more than 1.6 million Valentine's Day playlists created globally on Spo...
10/02/2025
New series Memory Bites with Matt Moran stirs up nostalgia with a taste of the p...
10/02/2025
MELBOURNE, Fla., Feb. 10, 2025 - L3Harris Technologies (NYSE: LHX) has introduced AMORPHOUS , its new software that features a single user interface to operate ...
10/02/2025
NEW YORK and MEXICO CITY Spanish-language media conglomerate TV Azteca has inked a two-year deal with WSC Sports for the AI-powered sports content technology pr...
10/02/2025
TORONTO Jordan Bartow, a 15-plus-year industry veteran with a history of driving artificial intelligence, media and enterprise cloud transformations, has joined...
10/02/2025
LA Wildfire Victims Fundraiser - Entertainment Industry
Erik Smalls February 10, 2025
0 Comments
Join us for an exclusive networking event designed fo...
10/02/2025
OWC and ARCHIWARE Partner to Deliver Seamless Shared Storage, Cloning, Backup, a...
10/02/2025
Berklee's Signature Series Celebrates the Music of Fleetwood Mac The concert will feature a global cast of over 90 students performing a career-spanning s...
10/02/2025
Adam Downey, director of post production at Sky, tells TVBEurope how seeing a harmonious team working to deliver a project is like watching a ballet
By Matthew...
10/02/2025
The association aims to support the media technology industry by identifying vulnerabilities in media systems and solutions
By Jenny Priestley
Published: Feb...
10/02/2025
A Dusseldorf court ruling on a patent dispute warned the company could face heavy fines
By Matthew Corrigan
Published: February 10, 2025
A Dusseldorf cour...
10/02/2025
The teams at Mikros Animation extend its heartfelt congratulations to DreamWorks...
10/02/2025
Super Bowl LIX: Tubi Leads All Streaming Platforms in Least Lag Time, According ...
10/02/2025
Live From Super Bowl LIX: Sports Broadcasting Hall of Fame Camera Operator Don C...
10/02/2025
Official trailer released for upcoming Sky Documentaries series David Frost VsComing to Sky and NOW on 23rd FebruaryMonday 10 February 2025
To view this conten...
10/02/2025
SPEAG combines CMX500 OBT with the DASY8-3D system for automated SAR testing of ...
10/02/2025
Back to All News
Netflix ISP Speed Index for January 2025
Mulitcolor streaks on a black background curved right to foreground with the Netflix logo N at the t...
10/02/2025
Back to All News
Dive into the 1960s and 80s Korean Music Scene with Upcoming S...
10/02/2025
John Nallen Named President and Chief Operating Officer of Fox Corporation in Ne...
10/02/2025
Fox Corporation Acquires Red Seat Ventures Los Angeles, CA - February 10, 2025 - Fox Corporation ( FOX or the Company ) (Nasdaq: FOXA, FOX) today announced ...
10/02/2025
Article courtesy of Digital Media World
Read the article
Ross Baker, senior colourist and head of grading at Molinare in London, talks about building his care...
10/02/2025
Article courtesy of Digital Cinema Report
Read the article
Light Iron has selected Nara for its New York and Los Angeles facilities - streamlining its workflo...
10/02/2025
Article courtesy of postPerspective
Read the article
If you've seen the show, you've likely noticed its distinctive look, part of which could be attri...
10/02/2025
Article courtesy of Televisual
Read the article
The series was shot by cinematographers Emmanuel Lubezki, ASC, AMC ( Chivo') and Bruno Delbonnel, ASC, AFC...
10/02/2025
Article courtesy of Post
Read the article
The feature brought together a familiar team that included Guadagnino, DP Sayombhu Mukdeeprom and colorist Claudio D...
10/02/2025
Article courtesy of Digital Media World
Read the article
Colourist Daniel Pardy talks about building a working LUT for this film with a distinctive 16mm film ...
10/02/2025
Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn
Thales has delivered the first drone system for ...
10/02/2025
Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn
Thales At a time when much is expected of AI and its contribution to the security and sovereignty of nations, Thales offers a ...
10/02/2025
Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn
Cannes, February 10th, 2025 - Space Norway, Northern Europe's leading satellite operator, and Thales Alenia Space, a joint v...
09/02/2025
Live From Super Bowl LIX: FOX Sports Highlights Celebrity Fashion With Productio...
09/02/2025
Live From Super Bowl LIX: NEP Specialty Capture Adds Key Cameras for Game Broadc...
09/02/2025
Live From Super Bowl LIX: Augmented-Reality Graphics Play Starring Role in FOX S...
09/02/2025
Live From Super Bowl LIX: Telemundo Deportes Goes All Out in Miami for Spanish-L...
09/02/2025
Live From Super Bowl LIX: FOX Sports Highlights Celebrity Fashion With Productio...
09/02/2025
Live From Super Bowl LIX: Augmented Reality Graphics Play Starring Role in FOX S...
09/02/2025
Live From Super Bowl LIX: NFL Tech Ops Rides Years of Experience for Biggest, Mo...
08/02/2025
The American Forces Network (AFN), the U.S. government's television and radio broadcast service for military personnel and their families stationed overseas...
08/02/2025
In his Joshua Tree studio, cinematographer Timur Civan recently lensed a new music video Resurrection for gothic country artist Blood Nebraska. Working in col...
08/02/2025
DoPchoice debuts Spill Killer designed to prevent light leakage and ensure a clean, professional look for set or location lighting.
The elegantly designed butt...
08/02/2025
ESPN and Major League Rugby (MLR) have announced a multiyear media rights agreement that will bring MLR games to ESPN platforms. Under the new deal, live covera...
08/02/2025
Grammy-Nominated Alum Shares Berklee Wisdom with His Student Sister I thought graduating with a double major would be the key to success, Carlos Perez de An...
08/02/2025
Live From Super Bowl LIX: Inside the SkyCam and Sony Efforts To Make 4K 240-fps ...
08/02/2025
Live From Super Bowl LIX: Inside the 10,000-Sq.-Ft. Tech Center With FOX Sports ...
08/02/2025
Live From Super Bowl LIX: CMSI Uses the Big Game To Push Workflows Forward The company is providing edit support for pregame, Tubi Red Carpet Show By Ken Kersc...
08/02/2025
Live From Super Bowl LIX: Inside SkyCam and Sony's Efforts to Make 4K 240 fp...
08/02/2025
Live From Super Bowl LIX: FOX Sports Digital Leans on Vizrt's TriCaster Vizi...
08/02/2025
Live From Super Bowl LIX: ESPN Studio Ops Spreads Across Big Easy From Fulton St...
08/02/2025
Live From Super Bowl LIX: Verizon's Joe Russo on How 5G Can Get to the Next ...
08/02/2025
Live From Super Bowl LIX: Inside the 10,000 sq. ft. Tech Center with Fox Sports ...