Animation films composition and lighting.

[sanghamithran]

Hi master Roger, hope you are doing well. Could you please share detailed how and why on these queries.

1. From your experience working on rango and wall E, could you share how you approached composition/framing and lighting.
2. Was it first framed as per storyboard and characters animated for that specific frame or was characters animated and you could choose how to cover the scene later.
3. How and when was lighting done along the process.

<li style=”text-align: left;”>How judgment of final scene was made, was the renders faster or it was expected to be turn out correct in the render judging by how lighting was imagined to be.

Topic

[Roger Deakins]

The process varied a little from film to film. We did storyboard most films we were involved with, I say we but tehre is a whole team doing story reels as they call them. We just gave advice, swapped ideas. For ‘How to Train your Dragon’ and ‘Croods’ we did some camera capture. This is where you have a virtual copy of your set and the characters within it and you can move around them, alter the sync etc.. But, mostly, shots were constructed by a very large team of people working over a long period of time, working with teh story reel as a basis.

Frustrating for us was that the lighting team then did their work and there was not enough interchange between the layout and lighting.

[sanghamithran]

Thank you very much for taking the time to reply Master Roger.

when you had a virtual copy scenerio, how was the process, was it very much like live action where the Actors/animators might have the scene acting/blocking done good and working for all 360 degree angle and you would shoot it as per your insitnct.

or was it like the animators did animation for the story board angles and you improved it on top while the capture stage.

In Rango how was the beautiful Roger deakins feeling compositions and lighting achieved precisley, was the focal length’s and light directions mentioned in storyboard reel.

 

[Roger Deakins]

We always referred to lens lengths and precise compositions on the animated film we were involved with. But, as always, its a collaboration with a great many people.

Camera capture was only used on specific scenes or, as with Rango, to explore a set. For the Croods, we were looking at how a hand held camera would feel. I’ve only experienced it in limited situations rather than an entire film.

[Author]

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