What's up?

Another interview with our crew, this time it’s our composer Kaapo Huttunen. Enjoy!

What does a composer do (in a nutshell)?

A simple yet a bit difficult question, for the music that the composer writes has many and varying responsibilities in film. The job of the composer depends on the film he/she is writing music for. But in general: music gives rhythmic structure and continuity; it adds meaning and emotional substance to the visual elements; very often music has a narrative role pointing out or “telling” things that aren’t otherwise apparent, etc.

What have your and Meruan’s plans been for the role of score music in the film?

My lips are sealed! Ok, let’s just say that the orchestration is large and the music, well, there’s a lot of it!

You’ve also composed for live action and documentaries. How does
 composing for animation compare to these?

In this case the biggest difference comes from the fact that the music is all the time very much on the surface and not underlining the action, as often may be the case. I should think that in the basic composition work there aren’t any big differences. You find out what it is that you need and then you write it.

What stage is your work in at the moment? What’s done and what still 
needs doing?

At the moment most of the music is still in my head or written down on big sheets of paper with a dull pencil. That’s how I write, I’m a bit old fashioned, you see. But all the scraps of paper have to be collected and written down on a notation program to create the final sheet music and then converted to midi-files. Then, finally, comes the mixing and the editing bit. In this film basically all the music is done on computers, with only a couple of exceptions. The orchestration is so extensive that it would be way too expensive to use a live orchestra. Sad but true. [Update: Since the interview Kaapo has finished composing and is going into the studio this week to start fiddling with the midi-files!]

What’s been the most interesting thing in working on the film until now?

Definitely working with the animators. Normally the composer doesn’t get to see a lot of the film making process, let alone take part in it. Now I’m right in the middle of it, even pitching ideas!

What did you / do you expect from this production, what will be hard
 and what will be easy?

I expected a new experience and that’s exactly what it’s been. I don’t know about hard, but I won’t let my work become too easy. If the composition just sort of happens, it only shows that I haven’t put enough thought into it.

Did you have to prepare for this project in any special way, get some particular info etc, to get to the best possible result?

This project started with thorough discussions with the writer/director, as it always should. Other preparations: watching lot’s of animated movies, old and new. That’s it.

Tell us an anecdote from your career as a composer!

A few years back I was in Berlin on my way to record music for a short film. We (the director and I) arrived at the building in former East Berlin, built for the national broadcasting company of East Germany. And it looked like it! A huge gray complex with extremely unimaginative socialist architecture, long corridors with low ceilings as far as the eye can see and hundreds of doors probably leading nowhere. It was a kafkaesque bureaucrat’s dream house, to put it short.

After almost a half an hour of wandering around trying to find the studio, we finally found the right door and went in. The vision was so bright, I had to shut my eyes for a second: everything was in gold! I mean absolutely everything, apart from the black grand piano in the middle of the vast room. Thousands of Fleur-de-lis painted everywhere (which is, by the way, also a sign of royalty and communists hate royalty!) And not only painted. Whereas normally acoustic walls have small simple holes in them, there were thousands of tiny fleur-de-lis-shaped holes in this studio (pity the poor sod who had to make them)! It was like some dance hall in Versailles! In East Berlin, where they destroyed old palaces, because they reminded them of imperialism, they built this absurdity! So, we recorded the music (five strings and a piano) and it turned out decent, I guess, but I’ll never forget the studio!

What advice would you give someone who’s interested in becoming a film composer?

Watch movies. Everything in the history of cinema, not just the latest ones. There is also a lot of theory on the subject which needs to be read, but it will never sink in if you don’t watch the movies. And what comes to the music you write, if your co-workers don’t agree with your ideas, there’s a good chance that you’re misunderstood. Music is a subject that really can’t be talked about and yet you have to talk about it all the time. So work on those communication skills, otherwise it can get quite frustrating!

If you have any questions for Kaapo concerning What’s Up? or film composing, post them in the comments!

Continuing our interview series here’s some thoughts from our editor Suvi Ryhänen, straight from the midst of the production.

Suvi is a freelance editor, you can see her work and contact her through her website www.leikkaaja.fi

What does an editor do, in a nutshell?

An editor’s job is much more than just cutting a programme together. The editor builds connections on both plot and atmospheric levels. The rhythm and sense of time are very much in the hands of the editor.

What was the starting point for you and director Meruan when you were first planning the edit for What’s up?

Finding the right and flowing rhythm is very important for the film. The rhythm of the events has to feel “right”, or else the audience might not get into the story and questions will arise that disturb the viewing experience. The length of the shots affects the rhythm and that’s what we’ve paid the most attention to.

What differences are there between editing animation and live-action? Or what about short vs feature films?

What´s Up? is my first time editing animation, so the experience is a new and interesting one! At first I had only a very vague idea how you edit animation. The pre-planning has a much bigger role in animation than it has in live-action. You have to imagine the edit beforehand, based on the storyboards and rough layouts. In live-action the editing of course happens with footage that’s already been shot. With animation you might get ideas for new shots even during editing, unlike with live-action: In Finland pick-up shots during editing are extremely rare. In other words, animation is edited before shooting, live-action after shooting.

The biggest difference between short and feature films is probably their structure. Shorts are not just features with shorter running times, but their own genre altogether. With shorts you don’t diverge onto sidepaths that support the main theme, but the narration progresses according to the situation (often a problem) set up at the start of the film, whatever the style. The edit of a feature has many parts, beyond which you also have to control their mutual interaction. This doesn’t mean that editing a short film is easier than editing a feature, although with a shorter running time the workload isn’t as big.

How far are you in your work on What’s Up? What is ready and what is yet to be done?

The film is now edited based on the layout versions and animation is about half way done. We’ll polish the edit here and there after animation has wrapped.

What has been the most interesting thing in making What’s Up? up until now?

The way of working has been very interesting. How the editing happens in such an early stage and only in the mind, as you don’t necessarily have all the concrete material yet.

What did you expect to be easy or hard with this production?

I admit I was a bit nervous at the start, as I had no previous experience with animation, but I was also very interested in the project and in the opportunity to edit animation. I found the pre-planning of the editing to be very interesting and hard work, in a positive sense. What I did already know was that animation is an enormously laborious job for the animators! Our composer seems to have his hands full with this project as well!

Did you have to track down any special information or some such in order to make sure you could do your best possible job on the film?

I used the internet’s inexhaustible, if not always totally reliable sources to find out how the heck you edit that animation stuff.

What advice can you give people who are interested in pursuing the career of film editing?

I believe that many people choose their professions according to how their brains and minds work. I have a habit of connecting things in my mind and I am quite sensitive to emotions, both of which are a benefit to an editor. When you figure out where you can use your own strengths and enjoy doing that – be it then the profession of an editor – just keep working in that direction. I believe that there’s always room for talented people in the industry.

If you have any questions to Suvi, go ahead and post them in the comments!

Hi there, it’s been a while! Anima Vitae studios was very busy during the last months of 2009, so there wasn’t too much going on with Huuhaa’s adventures. However, as of January were back in full swing. There’s been lots of creative thinking, great production meetings and hard work being poured into our short film.

So what exactly have we been doing? The most important thing to do in animation is to get your planning right. If you want to keep the project on time and in budget, you need to be sure that you’re not animating stuff that isn’t used in the final film. The script is what everything is based on, but you can only get so far with just words in a medium like animation. So the next step is to make a storyboard from the script, a kind of comic strip if you like. These were actually completed already back in autumn 2008 and were used to get the film funded.

As a comic strip is quite static the next thing to do is usually to make an animatic. Animatics are kind of slide shows made into movie files. They use the frames from the storyboard, put in sequence and timed for what you would expect the action in each frame to last.

At Anima Vitae however, the work flow goes from script or storyboard directly into what they call a “3D storyboard”. This means you take a very rough version of the location and character and put them in Maya, the animating software they use. There you can then make a “layout” of the whole film. The idea is to not pay any attention to animation at first, just lay out each shot in terms of what camera angle you have, what is seen in the picture and what the action is in each shot. So you basically have the whole film, in gray tones, with bulky locations and odd looking characters, who don’t even move their feet when walking

The whole idea here is to lay out the film as closely timed and edited as is possible at this stage, to see if the story works. It’s quite easy and cheap to make modifications at this stage, compared to when you’ve finished rendering and realise that you’d need a couple of more shots. And as this is such an important phase, we’ve been working on it all January.

Apart from Meru and Antti R., who’ve been doing the layout, our editor Suvi has also stepped in from time to time. The juggling between layout and editing has proven a good concept, as Suvi has been able to give feedback with fresh eyes, and ask for shot alterations, all to improve the final film.

At the same time composer Kaapo has been writing away at some ideas he has for the score. The importance of the music has been growing all the time during the layout phase, and from what I’ve heard I dare to say that there’s some mighty inspiring music coming up.

So that’s what’s happened until now. This week Meru and Antti will be jumping into animation mode, so we will see Huuhaa coming really alive for the first time! It’s quite exiting. I’ll be posting here more regularly now that we’re back in full production mode, so check back from time to time. Also go and see our Facebook page, there’s going to be some screenshots uploaded there by next week at the latest!

As promised in the last post, here’s a one-on-one with the director and creator of “What’s up?“, Meruan Salim.

1. Where did you get the original idea for the film?

Years and years ago, after seeing Jan Pinkava’s “Geri’s Game” I wanted to create something as simple and brilliant.
I thought of a short film about all the garbage and trash we humans make, so I got the general idea for “What’s up?”. It took me years until I actually got it written, but the idea had dwelled in my mind ever since – well with about a thousand other stories, but that’s another tale…

2. Is there a part of yourself in the protagonist Huuhaa?

Of course there is, I think whenever a storyteller creates a protagonist for a story it’s bound to have something of the writer in him/her. What that something is… well, I wouldn’t want to say anything negative, but I’m sad to say that that might be the case, since spontanity plays a negative part in this story

3. Why is he called Huuhaa?

Huuhaa is a word in finnish for a person who is all over the place, doing a lot of stuff (sloppily) all at the same time, not noticing the surrounding world at all. In other words the name tells us a lot about humanity, well at least how I see it.

4. What have you got done so far?

The script and storyboards along with the colorscripts are ready, as are the character designs. The character modeling and rigging are almost ready, but still need a couple of finishing touches. At the moment I’ve been working with the team to get the perfect look for the location, so we’ll be able to start on the 1st draft of the layout soon!

5. What has been the most exciting part of the development & preproduction processes?

Designing the characters and the location with all of the other members of our little team has been elevating and a lot of fun! But just the fact that something of my own is being created for real… I mean for real!!

6. What do you expect from the production process? What will be easy and what will be difficult?

The production so far has been going brilliantly and smoothly thanks to all the great people I’m surrounded by. Because of the shortness and simplicity of this story I hope it will keep it’s good momentum to the very end. At the moment we also have time on our side, which hopefully will cover for the lack of money we have My biggest fear for difficulty is at the very end, in compositing. To actually get the right look for the film.

7. Are there going to be new areas of expertise that you need to educate yourself in in order to make this film succeed?

There’s always room for educating yourself and for me this film is a major educating process. Not only is it the first “real” film I’ve directed, it’s also a real chance to show the quality of finnish 3D animation, so I’ve been reading books on everything from directing to lightning and layout to animation. Well and when I can’t be bothered with books, there’s always room to watch some new films, short and feature length.

8. How have you been preparing for your first time as a director?

I’ve been going to the gym and jogging in the mornings… hah hah… just kidding! But like I said studying books and watching films. I actually just saw a really interesting documentary on good old Alfred Hitchcock and his films, brilliant! So generally I’ve been trying to digest as much info on directing a possible.

9. What tips could you give to aspiring directors at this point, regarding any aspect of short film making?

What worked for me in animation, is working in directing – keep it simple! Even if the story is complicated, try to keep it simple for as long as you can. If you’re making a short film, remember to keep it short! So basically when you get a great idea, deliver it on paper and make it happen.

If you have any questions to Meruan, go ahead and post them in the comments!

Like I told you in the previous post, we had our production kick-off meeting a few weeks ago in the middle of August. Our whole crew was present, except composer Kaapo and studio producer Antti H. The aim of the meeting was to have everyone get together before the production starts for real and to go through everyone’s tasks and responsibilities. The people from the Anima studio of course all knew each other, but our freelancers Mikko the sound engineer and Suvi the editor (and the absent Kaapo) hadn’t met everyone yet.

The location evolution

We started off with modeller Aki showing us some preliminary mockups of the location, which resulted in a good discussion and a load of ideas. Our art director Mikko (yes we’ve got two Mikko’s and two Antti’s on the team ) even came up with a completely new feature, a well, and the whole group brainstorming further transformed the coming location from the relatively safe house you see in the above sketch to something much more desolate. All these ideas stemmed from the crew’s interpretation of Meruan’s script and storyboard. In our opinion they both made the film more consistent and helped to instantly describe the setting in as little time as possible. This last bit is very important when you’re making a short film, as you really don’t have the option of doing long setups to describe everything in your world.

Planning the production

After the location we went on to the production plan, mapping out the fall schedule. It turns out we might finish the film earlier than expected, but we will see. Our next steps will be: 1.) rigger Kustaa will finish the model of Huuhaa and Aki will work on the location 2.) Antti R. will start doing a rough layout of the whole storyboard as soon as the location is half way finished, this will include camera angles and a rough cut 3.) armed with the rough cut, composer Kaapo and sound editor Mikko can start their work on a preliminary sound track 4.) editor Suvi will take the rough cut and refine it before it goes to Meruan and Antti R. for animation.

A note on animation production vs. live-action

As some of you might notice, I haven’t included any voice recordings in the above outline – that’s because there will be no dialogue. Normally in an animation production, you’d start with a rough dialogue track and build the layout (or animatic or what you prefer to call it) around that. This is because it’s much easier to fit the lipsync to a dialogue track than for actors to try and catch the character’s lip movement and still try to sound natural. Another feature distinguishing animation from live action is that our editor will do much of her work with the rough layout, as opposed to after animation has wrapped. This is due to animation being time consuming and therefore costly and you want to waste as little material on the cutting room floor as possible. On a live action location you can relatively easily ask for some extra shots – not so with an animation production.

Our meeting ended with some greetings from our composer, who’d sent a preliminary theme track for all of us to listen to. Personally, I think he’ll be doing a great job, the theme sounds promising already!

Next up I will be treating you to some crew interviews with their views on the film, so stay tuned or subscribe to the RSS feed of this blog!

Hello and welcome to the production diary of the animated short film “What’s up?“. On these pages we give you a glimpse of what’s going on behind the scenes, where our short is slowly but surely taking shape. To check out our Facebook page go here

To start off, let me give you a little back-story. My name is Nick and I’m the producer of the film. While I was working as a production manager on the 3D feature film Niko and the Way to the Stars at Anima Vitae studios a studio animator, Meruan Salim, approached me with an idea for an animated short. I liked the idea and his enthusiasm, and soon we we’re planning how to go about financing and producing the film.

This was way back in April 2008. After finishing my job on Niko I continued to work as a freelancer for other companies as well as pushing forward my own projects. Together with Meruan we had lot’s of planning meetings, made proposals for the two finnish institutions that fund short film, and eventually also got meetings with them. We also got the finnish broadcasting channel YLE1 on board, they were actually the first ones we met and the first ones who said “YES!”

Things got complicated last fall, as it turned out that one of the two funding bodies did not appreciate our script. This meant we had to go back to file away at the budget and try to see if we could raise the budget from YLE, the Finnish Film Fund and by providing our own time as investment. Finally our efforts paid off, and we signed contracts with both funding bodies.

During all this time Meruan kept working on Huuhaa and the location and refining his idea of the film. He’d already invested lots and lots of his own time when we finally got the contracts, so most of our own investment has already been paid in.

Throughout the summer, our rigger Kustaa and modeller Aki were hard at work, starting to build both Huuhaa and his habitat. In August we had our kick-off meeting for the production, which I’ll cover in the next post, so stay tuned!