THE ARTIST BETWEEN THE RAYS: Buck

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THE ARTIST BETWEEN THE RAYS: Buck

Mymentalray had the opportunity to talk with some of the artist from Buck, about the short film "Tower of Grantville"

Ryan Honey: Creative Director
Jeremy Sahlman: Associate Creative Director
Thomas Schmid: Art Director
Bill Dorais: Lighting and Rendering TD

MYMR: Thank you for taking time out your busy schedule to talk to us.
Buck/ Ryan: no problems.

MYMR: First of all can you please tell us a little about Buck.
Buck/ Ryan: Buck is a Design House Specializing in all aspects of moving pictures, 3d, 2d, motion graphics and live action. Our staff consists of a diverse group of creatives including illustrators, designers, concept artists, cell animators, and 3d animators among others. We opened our doors in LA almost 4 years ago and now we have about thirty employees in both LA and NY offices.

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Jeremy Sahlman

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MYMR: What was the reason behind the creation of this amazing short.
Buck/ Ryan: This was a unique opportunity, that was brought to us by Scion's agency, Attik. The pitch brief was completely open, the only stipulation was that any characters had to have square heads. The Tower of Grantville was one of two concepts they chose out of a dozen or so pitched.
In this case our creative process was basically to all meet and discuss the pitch, then everyone went away and wrote ideas, they then presented them to me and together we figured out which ones we were going to pitch and/or modify etc. Tower was written and concepted by Jeremy Sahlman and he ended up modifying it a bunch of times to get the final product.

MYMR: Jeremy you were responsible of the feel and direction of this short is this correct?
Buck / Jeremy: Not really. I did right the initial script, but like Ryan said more than any other place I have ever worked, it is truly a collaborative work environment here. This piece is really made up of lots of people's ideas, and numerous artists' styles, if I tried to do something like this on my own it would never have all the unique things about it that make is so amazing.

MYMR: What inspired you to write this short?
Buck/ Jeremy: Dr. Seuse, specifically I read “The Lorax” a couple times. Tim Burton for sure, and the amazing pieces by studio aka “Picas.

MYMR: Where did you find the inspiration to make this unique look come a live?
Buck/ Jeremy: I did have an idea of what I thought the sets should look like, but actual style was a very organic process, we had some fabulous matte painters that we worked with to drive the look to a direction we all felt was unique and awesome. As for the characters, and the couple of shots that where completely 3d, Bill and I worked together to come up with some base passes we thought where awesome, and then we handed that stuff off to one of our art directors Thomas Schmid to push those passes way past where they started.

He then would return us a Photoshop file, of treated passes, and painted new ones etc, and Bill and I worked together to recreate that look from mental ray and our compositor. This way we are never limited at the design process stage by just taking our passes into a compositor and finding the look. We instead take the basics and then just do what ever it takes, then reverse engineer the process that a designer or art director might have taken

MYMR: Can you tell us from the compositor point of view what were the advantages of getting images coming from mental ray?
Buck/ Jeremy: I would say mostly it is versatility, and ease of use, within our choice of 3d package. Often times I will need a new pass extremely quickly, mental ray with Maya makes that easy “usually.” Another reason is obviously the use of displacement maps is key to our process. I won't pretend like it's the only renderer we use, we are a small shop and don't have access to every rendering tool we could ever want. But Mental ray is a great choice for us never the less, ease of staffing is a big part in that decision, as well as affordability, and like I said before versatility.

MYMR: Thomas you where in charge of the Look for this project correct?
Buck/ Thomas : To a certain extent, everyone really threw their own personal input towards the set design, background paintings, character design, and I was there in the end to make sure everything fit together as one aesthetic unit. For example, the characters were designed in part by our fellow designer Joe Mullen, and I was there to assist in finalizing the look and detail work of the character once the initial designs were completed. Similarly, the matte painters wanted to make sure their plates felt really personal and artistic, but since we were using three to four different people, there needed to be a phase after that were I could try to tie them all together. All in all, we try to make the process as organic as possible and allow everyone to chip in.

Thomas Schmid

Ryan Honey

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