"Arrest Assured" is a short comedic 3D animated
film created, directed and executed by Mike McCormick and
Rob Taylor, owners of the San Diego based animation studio,
Pendulum.
The short's hero is a tired and mischievous goof, who you
can't help but like. Upon seeing an ad for a jewelry store,
his late night boredom is interrupted by a half-baked criminal
idea. Unfortunately he's not the most stealthy and adept
of burglars…
The film is in the midst of its festival run at the moment,
so it's not available for download just yet. Still, if you
get a chance to see it at your local Animation Festival, do.
Until then, stop by the "Arrest Assured" website
and take a gander at the stills and clips Pendulum has put
up. It has a nice look, and the character design and animation
are both very well done.
CLICK TO VISIT THE "ARREST ASSURED" WEBSITE
"Arrest
Assured had fairly atypical beginnings. Instead of the customary
story development phases of a film's evolution, the short
found its origins in its own hero character. He was originally
designed for a different and much longer film, which is
slated for future development. It would have taken too long
to produce in the timeframe agreed upon, especially while
the creators were in the midst of building and running an
animation studio. But the story was so enticing that it
inspired some early character development and design work,
as well as some low-level modeling and animation tests.
One of Mike's early animations inspired Rob to start building
an environment around it. These first tests evoked a short
premise that evolved into a collection of gags and eventually
into a simple but entertaining story arc. As the creative
snowball built momentum, the two directors grew fond of
the character, and decided to move forward and fully develop
the short film. Thus, Arrest Assured was born.
While the film's evolution doesn't quite illustrate textbook
story development, the concept was short, humorous, appropriate
for any audience and most importantly, presented a great
number of creative and technical challenges that Mike and
Rob wanted to tackle. The result is an homage to the gag-based
old-school cartoons of Tex Avery and Chuck Jones, as well
as the physical humor of Chaplin and Buster Keaton… but
painted with a vibrant new digital palette.
The
character's design found its inspiration in many things,
including the original film's story (though we're keeping
that under wraps for now), as well as the wonderful work
of Nick Park & Peter Lord at Aardman Animations, the
famed studio to which the creators tip their hat throughout
the short film (check out the name of the Jewelry store).
The character's simplistic design, along with his well-intended
yet bumbling and oafish tendencies, gifted him with a personality
and life that Mike and Rob were eager to flesh out. The
elements of his design were all very intentional; for example,
he needed to look simple and somewhat dopey, so the large
head (and body) with small mouth and button eyes were integrated
to help achieve this.
But the use of such small eyes was a difficult decision,
made to some extent as a self-imposed storytelling challenge.
We're all so used to seeing large emotive eyes in animation,
that it's almost expected. Not that this is, in any way,
a bad thing… in fact, large eyes are an extremely helpful
and very expressive element of character design. But many
other important facets of a character are often neglected.
As much as possible, the directors wanted to express the
character's thoughts and emotions with other design elements.
Again, Aardman's work is a great example; the brows of Wallace
and especially Gromit are stunningly emotive. The amazing
range of emotions that can be communicated by Gromit (a
dog), without any words or significant sounds, is a beautiful
example of character animation at it's finest. Another prominent
feature is his large hands, which attempt to accomplish
multiple stylistic objectives; the size of the hands (and
overall body shape) immediately communicates that the character
is more of a physical kind of guy than an in-depth thinker.
Also, he doesn't look very dexterous, and his look seems
to suggest that he's more likely to solve problems (a critical
storytelling function) with brute force than by other means.
Whereas the small cute mouth helps to sell him as a kind,
goofy, and fairly well-intended chap, for whom it's easy
to feel sympathetic… at least, that's the intention.
CLICK
FOR A LARGER VERSION
"The
studio found inspiration in many things, including
the wonderful work of Nick Park & Peter Lord at
Aardman Animations, the famed studio to which the
creators tip their hat throughout the short film..."
The
design and mood of the environments in Arrest Assured play
a critical and deliberate supporting role to our hero. Thus,
color, lighting and texture were extremely important components
for the short. Cool blues permeate the nighttime scenery
with hints of warm yellows and oranges to compliment and
outline various elements. Key and back-lights are used extensively
to make the character pop off the screen. If your environments
are eye-catching and, hopefully, artistically attractive,
then you need to make sure that your shot's desired focal
point is still able to stand out. In this case, the focus
is often on the hero character or the gem in the jewelry
store. Either way, the viewer should be comfortably led
from intended focal point to focal point. This is done with
targeted lighting, halos, and animated depth-of-field (as
seen in the use of "rack focus").
As
a side note, many of these vital storytelling tools &
methodscan be researched in John Alton's classic book Painting
with Light (we also recommend Orson Welles' early films,
especially The Third Man and Citizen Cain). However, a richly
textured world is by no means always necessary to tell a
story (wait till our next short), but for Arrest Assured
the directors wanted to draw the viewer into the world.
The objective was to meld the playfully unrealistic character
to the stylized yet semi-realistic world around him just
enough to make you believe he belongs there. This is an
approach at which Aardman has become exceedingly adept;
making you believe their simple plasticine characters are
living breathing beings, acting within the miniature sets
that the production designers have built around them. This
demonstrates one of the most important facets of storytelling…
believability (not reality). Does the character fit his
environment, does the viewer feel any connection to the
hero, and can the story evoke a feeling… in this case humor
and maybe even sympathy, or pity?
The film was created for many purposes, from the testing
of character and production design techniques to asset management
and production streamlining. It also facilitated the implementation
of a newer faster and smarter production pipeline at Pendulum.
And it allowed the creators to investigate some new technical
and creative techniques while testing the studio's theories
on production management, CGI animation pipeline efficiency
and production quality control.
But most importantly, the film was made because the creators
love storytelling and animation.
The
character's design found its inspiration in many things,
including the original film's story (though we're keeping
that under wraps for now), as well as the wonderful work
of Nick Park & Peter Lord at Aardman Animations, the
famed studio to which the creators tip their hat throughout
the short film (check out the name of the Jewelry store).
The character's simplistic design, along with his well-intended
yet bumbling and oafish tendencies, gifted him with a personality
and life that Mike and Rob were eager to flesh out. The
elements of his design were all very intentional; for example,
he needed to look simple and somewhat dopey, so the large
head (and body) with small mouth and button eyes were integrated
to help achieve this. 
As
a side note, many of these vital storytelling tools &
methodscan be researched in John Alton's classic book Painting
with Light (we also recommend Orson Welles' early films,
especially The Third Man and Citizen Cain). However, a richly
textured world is by no means always necessary to tell a
story (wait till our next short), but for Arrest Assured
the directors wanted to draw the viewer into the world.
The objective was to meld the playfully unrealistic character
to the stylized yet semi-realistic world around him just
enough to make you believe he belongs there. This is an
approach at which Aardman has become exceedingly adept;
making you believe their simple plasticine characters are
living breathing beings, acting within the miniature sets
that the production designers have built around them. This
demonstrates one of the most important facets of storytelling…
believability (not reality). Does the character fit his
environment, does the viewer feel any connection to the
hero, and can the story evoke a feeling… in this case humor
and maybe even sympathy, or pity?