There is a little boy at play, caressed by the sun on a lovely Fall afternoon. There is an old Tree House nestled in the arms of a sycamore tree, its leaves turning to gold as the seasons change. These are the images that open the animated short film Little Red Plane, and they are instantly appealing.

But laid on top of those carefree images, like the hints of grey in that gorgeous Autumn sky, are the layers of a deep story -- a father's gift to his son. In fact, it is that story which sets Little Red Plane apart from most animated shorts. Most films of this length, whether by intent or accident, are quickly consumed and forgotten. But this film's story is so resonant and touching that it is in the process of being made into a children's book.

Little Red Plane has been so well received that it has led the crew who worked on it to start their own studio, Shadedbox Animations. The studio is super-busy these days, doing Special Effects, commercials, and working up a development deal with Disney, when they're not working on their next animated short. Still, the studio's Joey Jones and Wira Winata generously took some time out from their busy schedules to sit down and answer a few questions for us about the film.

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OGDEN: Where did the idea for Little Red Plane come from?

JONES: The idea originally came up when five of us met in a classroom on a Saturday morning, brainstorming for ideas. The subject came up of what it was like to be a kid. We reminisced on flying paper airplanes on hot sunny days and what that meant to us. Many of us had recently seen The Red Balloon, a classic French short, in our classes, and we were a little influenced by that film.

But Little Red Plane was not a workable story until Howard Kouo, who had done military service in the Army, wrote it as a short story about a father's gift to his son during the World Wars.

OGDEN: How big was the team?

JONES: The team started as three of us, then quickly grew to five, and eventually reached eleven. We were all students at Art Center College of Design, where we met during late nights in the computer labs, working on our class projects. We all had different talents and majors, however, we all wanted to tell good stories and produce computer animation. We were fortunate to be able to add the best students in the school to the project when word spread that we were working on a CG short. Even though the short was not for any particular class, we managed to incorporate the short into various classes.

OGDEN: How long did it take to complete the film?

JONES: The film took 2 years from the time we came up with the idea to the date I had the 35 mm film print in my hands. Since we were all full time students, with other classes and commitments, we met twice a week for over a year.

Unfortunately, we began to aggravate other students (understandably) who wanted to use the computer labs for their own projects, but we needed all the rendering power we could get to finish. The school politely asked us to take production off campus. So, we all pulled our money together and invested in a six machine render farm in Mike's two bedroom apartment. Within time, some of us graduated from school and we worked on the project while working on other freelance jobs to pay the bills.

One bump in the road was the fact that Maya went through two upgrades while in production of LRP. Each time, the school would automatically update its software, inevitably causing us to lose some data through the conversions and various adjustments.

OGDEN: How was your work financed?

JONES: Since we were students at the time, we had access to free software and free labor -- the two most expensive parts of making these shorts besides our time and sleepless nights! The school helped us transfer our short to a 35mm film print and it helped us enter a few film festivals. Speaking for myself, my wife supported me for three years while I went to school!

WINATA: Still, some of us had to take any kind of freelance jobs just to pay the bills while working on the short at night.

OGDEN: Who designed the look of the characters and film, and what do you think influenced the design?

WINATA: One of the biggest influences came from Japanese filmmaker, Hayao Miyazaki and his animation studio Ghibli. Pixar had just released A Bug's Life and that was a huge influence on us too. At the same time, we wanted to be as original as possible in creating our own style and art direction. We knew from the start that we were not going for photo-realism. Everything, from the designs, lighting, and the overall look, were stylized but still we made everything as believable as possible.

We did research and based the designs on existing planes, but we stylized the design whenever possible. We also value traditional art very much and so everything starts from drawings and paintings. Hand drawn storyboards, color scripts, compositions and production designs were finished before we actually went to 3D. We also tried to make the camera work as believable as possible, but also tried to be creative with it at the same time.

OGDEN: Did you work from a storyboard? How complete was it?

JONES: Yes, we did work from storyboards. They were invaluable! We also did five rough animatics before we put together the final edit. In the end, we wasted some time because were not rigorous enough with preproduction. We spent a great deal of time on some shots we ended up losing in the final cut.

In the end, it was great to see how far we had come from the very first 2d animatic to the final cut.

OGDEN: The lighting in the film is beautiful. Talk a bit about the theory behind ShadedBox's approach to light and atmosphere.

WINATA: Again, everything starts on a piece of paper, through drawings and paintings. We did numerous color scripts before we even started the lighting. Composition of lights and darks, contrasts of values, hues and saturations, shapes and sizes are all thought of carefully in every single shot. All the elements of making a good composition in a drawing or painting become the foundation of the cinematography.

JONES: Since we knew we'd have to tell the story through the visuals only, we paid a great deal of attention to the details. One thing which blew me away was how much atmosphere the sound design brought. Hearing the plane engine or the thunder crack, brought an added layer of believability to the world we were attempting to create.

OGDEN: What can you say about the way you used colour in the film as a story point?

JONES: We used color extensively. Since the film has no dialogue or narration, we used color to convey the sense of mood, emotion, and arch of our main character. Combining weather with its colors -- yellow sunny days to deep blue dark clouds -- allowed us to communicate everything from a carefree day running with the toy red plane to approaching danger from enemy fire!

But the most important way we used color was the link between the Father, the boy, and the cardinal. All reinforcing the theme of flight, the color red weaves between them. The father and the boy fly red planes, the father's insignia is "the cardinal", the cardinal is a red bird...