"'Humans!' started as a propaganda assignment for an
advanced motion graphics class. Instructor and owner of Blind,
Chris Do, set the parameters for the assignment and waited
for boards to come in. It was meant only as a conceptual assignment,
but we decided it had enough life and potential to be fully
produced and animated. The boards and script went through
an extensive revision process. Chris provided amazing feedback
and suggestions throughout this process.
At
a certain point, we had to just jump into things. We storyboarded
the entire spot, and tossed those frames into an animatic
to lock down timing and pacing. We wanted the piece to feel
sorta like the old School House Rock PSA's. We dug
up a lot of old wartime propaganda developed by Disney during
WW2, and a lot of stuff like that. The look was developed,
characters and environments were designed, and then we started
building assets.
We've
each got our own particular strength and agenda when it
comes to art making, so we try to slip a little something
personal into every project. All of the characters, and
the majority of the environments were created and animated
in Maya. Traditional animation intrigues all of us, so we
put some of that into the mix as well. All of the facial
animation, as well as a lot of the effects animation was
done traditionally using Mirage (Bauhaus Software) in conjunction
with After Effects.
|
"We
wanted the piece to feel sorta like the old School
House Rock
PSA's."
- Three Legged Legs
|
We've
run into a lot of problems dealing with copyright for music,
so we decided to go all original. A post on Craigslist,
and 15 minutes later, we found our men. Richard Emmet composed
the score in about 3 days (which sounds totally amazing),
and Dave Mitchell did our voice over work (equally amazing).
And
boom, there you have it. Humans! was completed in about
3 months, while balancing a full college course load. It
wouldn't have been possible without the hundreds of bottles
of Tejava we consumed throughout the semester. Making Humans!
was a battle to the bitter end, but we're all happy.
Thats
it for now. Stay tuned to the Three Legged Legs website
to track our entry into the commercial world.
We love you all. Goodbye!"
