E.T.A.
Title: E.T.A.
Release Date: June 2008
Director: Henrik B. Clausen
Runtime: 4mins
Story
It was all about a Weyland-Yutani guard on a ship received a Happy New Year greetings. A power loss on the ship results with the ship losing gravity. The guard repaired the ship’s mainframe, restoring the power. He later pressed a “coffee” button. As the guard began to watch TV something that appears to be an Alien came to the cockpit. It is implied later that the Alien is in fact a robot and its inner jaw functions as a coffee machine.
Behind-The-Scenes
By Henrik B. Clausen
At last, the circle is complete!
This has been the most ambitious project we have ever embarked on. After releasing All Things Trash at Scene Event 2004, Trenox came up with the idea for at short film based around a simple but elegant twist at the end. We all liked the idea and it seemed rather painless in terms of models to be built and a seated character with only limited animation needed throughout the film. Trenox and DFeKT did the initial storyboards which HEiNRiCH cut into animatics dialing in at a little more than one minute each. Trenox began modelling the spaceship which would be the stage for the entire film, while DFeKT started doing concepts for the main character. After a while it became obvious that the story needed a different pacing if it should gain any chance of creating a suspenseful atmosphere. Therefore HEiNRiCH took the work-in-progress models Trenox and DFeKT had made, and set them up for quick dummy animation to create a more accurate previz of the film, with added camera moves and animation timing for the characters. Shots were added, removed, or changed altogether ending up, at some point, with a film almost six times the original length. This took place over the better part of a year, and with Scene Event drawing near again, the decision to take a break from the film to do Godmorgen Sol was made. This provided a creative burst of energy, but also set the bar for the quality of the images, from where it was to be raised even further, including the decision to do the film in a 720p HD abbreviation.
Moving forward, several character designs for Marvin (the pilot) had been made and later discarded, causing quite a bit of remodelling during the course of the production for him alone. An entire set piece, the inside of the cargo bay, was also abandoned partly finished because it did not fit with the cut of the film and was left out. This was one of the things you’re supposed to avoid by doing the previz and proper planning, but spanning the production over a large amount of time, makes it prone to revisions, both in design, editing and look. Which brings us to our next creative crisis during the fall of 2005.
The temperature is declining, and so is our stamina for keeping up the pace of the production. Abandoning the film is not an option – too much time has been spent on it already to not see it through, but we desperately need a kicker to get back on track. So during a production meeting for E.T.A. DFeKT and HEiNRiCH discuss the possibility to do a small project, to finish something and feel the cretive juices flowing again. And so, production on Mice & Monsters began, propelling us into a storm of missed deadlines and obstructing commercial projects taking focus right up till the easter premiere at BreakPoint 2006.
So, once again we raised the bar for the look of the film, but now we are compelled to get it done or die trying. After a slight break following the release of Mice, HEiNRiCH is beginning to output final composites of most scenes not requiring character animation. The shot with the floating coffeecup spilling liquid through the air is the first to be completed, and sets the tone for the film in terms of detail. Meanwhile the majority of modelling is done, leaving only the pitfall of animation missing as well as various matte paintings. During the fall of 2006, contact is made with british radio freelancer Patrick Charlton, who gathers friends and colleagues to do readings of the dialogue Tytte and HEiNRiCH has written for the various tv-channels audible in the film. Shots are beginning to roll out at a more steady pace, with only the occasional odd commercial job settings us back a month or two – or three. This is repeated throughout most of 2007 aswell, ending up with an extensive pullthrough during the crossover between 2007/2008. Most of the films shots are completed in this period, leaving only finalized sounddesign to be done by Tytte while facing exams at his university. Sound was delivered and finally mastered two days before leaving for Bingen. The only thing left was to make a satisfactory encoding of the film and enter it in the competition.
In retrospect, there’s a lot of things which could/should have been done differently, but then again that’s part of the process; learning from our mistakes and forever trying to improve our skills.
In any case, we have finally finished out first animated short film – which turned out to be the third.
So here’s to the next life-sucking production of 3-4 years… (or less).
