NOTE: This film
features frontal male nudity, so those of you squeamish
of naked CG characters may want to avert your eyes.
"The
Joy Kinematics" by Mario Ucci is a short, tight story
of a middle aged writer who falls into darkness after he has
to stop drinking. The film is a poignant study on depression
inspired by "Darkness Visible", a true story written
by author William Styron.
The film's miniscule 8-month production phase stands testament
to Ucci's stout preproduction cycle. Although preproduction
lasted several years, he spent the time well, refining the
story, making key decisions and developing his production
methodology.
The approach allowed Ucci to focus on story execution, and
it's done well, succinctly, viscerally. A naked recovering
alcoholic writer, floundering in a dry swimming pool trying
to write while surrounded by bottles becomes the perfect metaphor
for a haunted recovery and a very effective way to tell the
story.
"I had the original idea for this short 5 years ago after
reading the book Darkness Visible, by William Styron (Sophie's
Choice). I had just started doing 3D and I thought it would
be easy to make this short straight away... even though it
involved water simulations and hair generation.
So after my 4th try in producing the movie I finally did it
this time. It took me around 8 months to complete it, but
the it has some shots done in my 3rd try still there. There
are probably 40 versions of editing in the animatics folder
of this film. The editing was the most fascinating aspect
of the pre-production of this movie. 90% of the entire editing
was done in pre-production leaving a few minor changes after
I had the short entirely rendered.
Compositing was also a very satisfying side of the project.
Very artistic and creative. Thinking back now I would have
preferred to have done this short film in live action because
when I started learning about film editing (mainly with Walter
Murch's books) my interest for the 3D side of it just faded
away.
"Five
years ago, I had just started doing 3D and I thought
it would be easy to make this short straight away..."
- Mario Ucci
On
the other hand, doing an animation film makes the experience
way more personal. With a crew of 2 people, Andrew Hutchinson
did a great job modelling, animating and co-editing the
film. Luiz Elias did a fantastic job modelling the feet
and the ears of the character.
A very interesting thing about the production times is that
I could speed up my workflow a lot as I was moving to different
companies in Soho (London) and meeting people like Stuart
Hall (Passion-Pictures) and Jordi Bares (The Mill) and seeing
how they work.
Hopefully I will be able to do more films in the near future."
