Lost Light film blog: Pre-Visualization

Pre-production for "Last Light" began at the end of 2012, during the Concept Development class taught by Professor Keith Ingham at SCAD Atlanta. There, I developed a series of ideas, chose one, and started to develop it. By the end of the class, I had created a "Production Bible", a small book containing all the ideas required to begin production, as well as an animatic with scratch sound. There may still be changes made at this point.

Primary Running Time: 1:40

Treatment:

Tag Line:

Even the last light can be a beacon.

Elevator Pitch (Synopsis):

Set in the 1950's along an American coast line, the sun sets, and the last ray of sunlight flies out. While competing against his fellow rays of light as well as electric bulbs, the last ray must look for a place to stay and light up for the night. This 3D animated short will be using complex shading and lighting in a stylized world while featuring a simple piano soundtrack with environment sound effects.

Character Description:

The main character is the last ray of sunlight, nick-named "Ray". It has no human form, but is portrayed as a small ball of flickering, sentient light. it is the largest, and therefore slowest, of his kin, forcing him to race them in order to achieve its goal. Ray's one goal is to be useful to someone by lighting their way.

Market:

The film is intended to appeal to a large audience ranging from children to adults, and is being developed with the goal of gaining entry into an animation festival in mind.

Technique and Software:

Animation will be made in Autodesk Maya and related packages. All lighting, shading, and rendering will be using PR Renderman. The particle effects will be developed in Maya and SideFX Houdini. Finally, it will be composited in post-production using Foundry Nuke.

Style:

It will have desaturated colors throughout much of the short, keeping the majority of the environment colors cool, with electric lights emitting a green-toned light. "Ray", and the other balls of the light, will be the warmest and brightest part of the film at first, reflecting the warmth and joy from the sun, while contrasting warm and cool colors in the art direction. I intend to use an elongated style for the modeling, and a stylized animation for the environment. The setting will be in the 1950's, in a coastal town. This short will visually focus on textures and lighting while keeping a coherent look.