MY GIANT ROBOT!

Spidertron Lives! So does the film...

2009-01-06T15:04:00.004-05:00

Production of the film was on hiatus as I made the move from Ohio to LA in 2007, but about to resume in 2009! Multi-talented 3d artist Chris Schoenman of Spacejunk Media has been working on Parker's Spidertron in his free time and I thought this was a great way to begin updating the site again.

The film has also caught the attention of sci-fi blogs Monster Island News and UnDead BackBrain recently, thanks to Avery Guerra.

House Robot: Under Construction

2006-06-14T11:29:00.000-04:00

I'm still tweaking this giant, but you can take a look at the progress. (It'll take a moment to load the Quicktime movie). Once again, special thanks to Horizon's Mike Beaumont for another amazing effort with the sound design. I love hearing the car alarm flying out of sight!

Robot Powers in Stereo

2006-06-14T10:42:00.000-04:00

Experience Lovey's super strength, super spin, and super blast in stereo thanks to the talent of Horizon's Mike Beaumont. You can view the animation and hear the sound design right here. (It'll take a moment to load the Quicktime movie).

Robot Powers

2006-05-17T09:13:00.000-04:00

To pose the question "What kinds of powers would you give a robot?" Lovey demonstrates three from his arsenal. Super strength, super spin, and super blast. Take a look! (It'll take a moment to load the Quicktime movie). This animation marks my first attempt lighting a 3D character with HDRI (High Dynamic Range Imagery). Huh? Basically, it's a technique that uses a panoramic photo you've taken to emit light in 3D space giving you a far more realistic robot. For more info on HDRI click here.

Lovey

2006-03-16T00:34:00.000-05:00

Two of Avery's responses begin and end the film. Pint-sized bookends if you will. And why? Because I believe he might be from another planet, and that jives well with the sci-fi nature of this particular project. So take a look at the development of his brick robot by clicking on the image...

Super Inspiring

2006-03-06T11:13:00.001-05:00

I just bought a book at the Wexner Center book store that has me pretty fired up. It's a collection of photos of Japanese robot toys from the 70's and early 80's entitled Super #1 Robot. There's a brief intro that outlines the history of the "super robot" and the rise and fall of the genre's popularity. There's something very noble and pure about the design of these robots that I'd like to capture in My Giant Robot! I think you might notice the influence as I go. The one shown here is from the book, all beautifully photographed by Tim Brisko, which I highly recommend.

The Big Board!

2006-03-02T10:24:00.000-05:00

I added a 4x8' bulletin board to my apartment to keep track of the project, "at a glance."

Tape Transfer

2006-03-02T10:12:00.000-05:00

I just got my 6 Sony HDCAM masters dubbed to miniDV for the final edit. There are not many Sony HDCAM decks in town and a few phonecalls lead me to our local CBS affiliate, WBNS, for the best transfer rate. My friends at Spacejunk Media have been kind enough to allow me to capture my anamorphic footage uncompressed, so the final film will look nice and crisp! Excellent...

There Goes the Neighborhood

2006-02-17T18:45:00.000-05:00

So there's been some trial and error, and there's bound to be more, but here's a look at where I'm at with the Toon Shader. I have plenty of compositing to do to get the look I want - both with the appearance of the "neighborhood" as well as the background. Plus, my outlines (dark purple) are so thin and close together on the front porch, that they're flickering. Kind of annoying... Anyway, here's a glimpse of it in motion.

lights CAMERAS action

2006-02-13T16:49:00.000-05:00

With the toon shader set up, I need to prepare each shot before rendering. So I had to place cameras in my 3d scene and pick my shots. Seems straight forward enough, but then you realize you can put the camera anywhere! So I focused on stringing a series of shots together that would best tell the story. The house robot gets up, sets off a car alarm, and kicks the car outta the neighborhood. Done. So here's a rough cut with 7 shots from 7 separate cameras in my scene... Click here to check it out - and here if you need Quicktime.

Toon Shader

2006-02-09T11:29:00.000-05:00

I'm playing with the new toon shader menu in Maya 7. This is just the "fill" colors for the house robot. Now I need to add the "outlines" which will make it easier to see the details of the porch, windows, door, etc. The purple outline is just a stroke in Photoshop. Anyway, next to the 3d model you can see where I sampled the color palette from Kendal's original drawing (and desaturated them a little). So far so good...

Changing Directions

2006-02-09T10:30:00.000-05:00

I originally intended to add photo-realistic visual effect shots to bring some of the kids ideas to life. For a variety of reasons, I'm planning to rethink this approach. For one, each child's imagination works differently - so why shouldn't each of their "dreamlands" look different too? And secondly, it's been almost four years and I need to finish this short film. Ha! So I think I can speed up the animation process a little by being more creative. Uh...and I quit my day job. Seriously. I'm committed to finishing this before the kids can drive to the premiere. Yikes.

So here's where I left off with Kendal's house robot. The blue/gray image shows the lighting pass in Mental Ray while the other shows a ROUGH composite of the textured house robot over the live action background plate. This is all about to change...

An Original Score

2005-10-28T14:49:00.000-04:00

Dolf Kämper of the ANALOG arts ensemble is composing an original score for the film. ANALOG is a collective of artists and musicians based in Baltimore, New York, and Omaha. As a composer, Kämper has had performances in the U.S. and Germany, and performed as a trumpet player with symphonies in Omaha, Baltimore, Mexico, and Germany. Kämper is also the founder of ANALOG and contributor to ANABlog.

How Tall Would Your Robot Be?

2004-07-07T13:52:00.000-04:00

To pose the question “How tall would your robot be?” Andrew’s Mr. Smiley makes another appearance, this time in downtown Columbus, Ohio. Director of Photography Wayne Sells shot the buildings at sunset in HD. The animated robot, his reflection in the facing windows, and a small dust cloud were composited into the shot paying close attention to the long, cool shadows and warm sunlight. Sound designer Mike Beaumont brought the scene to life with the mechanical stomping, creaking, and big city traffic sounds. Check out the Quicktime here, or view a Windows Media Video here.

Giant Trailer on the City Skyline

2004-05-17T09:47:00.000-04:00

The MGR! trailer has been included in the programming loop airing on ADTV (Arena District Television) - a huge 31' 6" x 18' 3" light emitting diode (LED) video display. This massive screen broadcasts to the large plaza area in front of Nationwide Arena. If you're out on the town, be sure to look up when you hear kids talking robots!

Trailer Premieres at SciFi Marathon

2004-05-02T23:57:00.000-04:00

On Saturday afternoon at the Arena Grand Theatre, approximately 400 marathoids saw the recently completed teaser trailer for MGR! Just before Creature from the Black Lagoon in 3D screened, I was handed the mic to set-up the preview. The projection and sound were great, filling most of the 65 foot screen and booming over the THX sound system.

This was the 21st Annual Ohio 24 Hour Science Fiction Marathon and featured special guests Phil Tippett and Sandy Collara. Phil has been nominated for 6 Academy Awards, winning for his Visual Effects on Return of the Jedi and Robocop. He premiered his directorial debut, Starship Troopers 2, while Sandy presented his short film Batman: Dead End. Both Phil and Sandy now have copies of the MGR! trailer on DVD and were very encouraging.

Here's the MGR! ad that ran in the Marathon program - special thanks to the event organizer, Bruce Bartoo.

Layers Upon Layers

2004-04-26T22:46:00.000-04:00

Andrew's idea of having a "famous robot that appears in movies" is brought to life with compositing. Inspired by the classic James Bond titles, we had Andrew walk out and aim his remote control - striking the 007 pose. Then the 3d incarnation of his robot was animated, following his lead, and delivers a blast from his sidearm.

To help make these two look as if they're walking together, similar shadows and the same background were added. Next, the iris was modeled in 3d and animated to follow their movements. After the shot, it recoils and blood oozes down the screen. To get the right kind of dripping, we squirted paint over a greenscreen (making it easy to remove the green).Put all the layers together and what've you got? The final composite [above].

Lighting Mr. Smiley

2004-02-04T12:36:00.000-05:00

In this example of Andrew's Mr. Smiley, digital photos were altered and used as "texture maps" which were wrapped onto the 3d model. Then the lighting method, called Final Gather, was used to calculate the bouncing nature of light inside an interior space - off walls, objects, etc. The result is a more realistic appearance of shadows and highlights.

Youth Orchestra in the Trailer

2003-12-30T10:41:00.000-05:00

The Columbus Symphony Youth Orchestra's recording of Gustav Holst's The Planets will be heard throughout the trailer for the film. Central Ohio's aspiring young instrumentalists in grades 9-12 perform in this ensemble, directed by Columbus Symphony Orchestra Associate Conductor Peter Stafford Wilson.

Spidertron Rises

2003-10-24T16:15:00.000-04:00

Here’s a look at the process behind the transformation from concept to 3d. During the shoot, kid’s were asked to explain what his or her imagined robot would look like while drawing [1]. For Parker's Spidertron mecha, I referenced examples from nature [2] to determine how it might move in real life. I also looked at depictions of the Centaur from Greek mythology [2] as well as Japanese Gundam models [3], which he mentioned as he drew Spidertron's head. This lead to sketching [4] and modeling a simple 3d version [5], which will serve as a base for the more detailed model appearing in the film.

Editing the Interviews

2003-03-13T09:30:00.000-05:00

This week, Avid editor Josh Varelmann completed the question and answer portion of the film. Beginning with several pages of cut-and-pasted quotes from the 4 hours of original footage, Josh managed to simmer down the abundance of content to just over 7 minutes. The end result? Great pacing with moments of hilarity. You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll want your own giant robot.

Shoot #2 and #3

2002-12-09T12:00:00.000-05:00

We have officially interviewed 20 children from 11 different families for My Giant Robot! With four more interviews on Nov 20th and ten on Dec 7th, we now have everything we need. Answers were as varied as polka-dotted stinky-diaper house robots to smiley guardian robots who can communicate with all living things. Ages ranged from 3-11, and all left the studio with their very own MGR! T-shirt (plus sugar-buzz). The MVP awards go to Chad Wollett and Wayne Sells who returned to Columbus from a shoot in Detroit at 4:30am the morning of the last day of interviews. Five hours later they were behind both cameras and once again did an excellent job. Production now moves into the post-phase which includes the editing, effects, animation, and sound design.

Shoot #1

2002-11-16T18:00:00.000-05:00

The first six interviewees have been shot by veteran director of photography Wayne Sells in HD. Newcomer Chad Wollett operated Camera 2, capturing each child's drawing process from above with the use of a 24 foot crane. Mike Beaumont recorded the audio, which ranged from roaring enthusiasm to nervous shrugging and sighs. No Boddy conducted the interviews and scared the children - well, just one or two really. Overall it was a really fun time, although at one point a five year old stood up mid-interview and declared, "That's it - I'm outta here." and walked off the set! Hilarious.

Invaluable Advice from Ohio State

2002-11-05T18:00:00.000-05:00

Special thanks go out to Dr. Kathy L. Reschke from the Department of Human Development and Family Science at The Ohio State University. Dr. Reschke took the original nine question treatment and developed it into a spreadsheet which varies the phrasing of questions for different age groups. Her efforts also yielded a list of goals, activities, ice breakers and helpful hints. Wow... She will be awarded her own giant robot when production ends.

Ozone Greenlights the Shoot

2002-10-28T21:00:00.000-05:00

ozone studios, a full service production studio in Columbus, Ohio, has agreed to shoot My Giant Robot! Their facility is located between The Arena District and The Short North and offers everything from HD video to graphics and sound design. Ozone's support on this project not only enables the film to be made, but to be made with an extraordinarily high level of quality.