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It's Better To Animate a Film Alone, Even If It Takes Years
- curtis 10y agoThe Nova Seed trailer can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ADm0BSHMeA&feature=youtu.be https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ADm0BSHMeA&feature=youtu.be
- brink 10y agoJust a heads up for those at work - The embedded video does have some animated footage of a topless woman. (Mildly NSFW)
- eridius 10y agoA topless snake demon.
- khedoros1 10y agoIf you're somewhere that you're likely to get in trouble for looking at animated breasts, I'm not sure that the distinction matters so much. And anyhow, snake demons are people too. Don't be speciesist.
- eridius 10y agoIt changes the context from titillating to, well, watching an animated movie that involves a snake demon. Sure, workplaces may still frown on it, but it's still probably much more acceptable than looking at a topless human woman.
- Animats 10y agoThe look seems to come from Heavy Metal, the 1981 movie.
- savanaly 10y agoIt's incredible he was able to accomplish an eighty minute movie himeslf. The art in the trailer for Nova Seed (not necessarily the fight scene embedded in the OP article) reminds me of Sally Cruikshank animated shorts. [1] [1] e.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N0Z6SOlWbds https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N0Z6SOlWbds
- Red_Tarsius 10y agoNick DiLiberto's work is incredibly inspiring and shows you the power of discipline and long-term planning. Years ago my university featured a talk with solo traditional animators. It's a grueling life. You wake up, start to draw, eat, go back to drawing, sleep. Repeat for x months/years. Indie hand-drawn shorts are a popular niche in France and, to a lesser degree, in Italy. Via Curiel, 8 (10min short) required 2 years of work and more than 4000 hand-made acrylic drawings. https://vimeo.com/141520314 https://vimeo.com/141520314 Animation is not my field, but it's interesting nonetheless. "An hour of my animation is made up of about twenty small films, twenty years of work and thirtyfive-thousand drawings" – Simone Massi http://www.simonemassi.it/index.php?menuid=3 http://www.simonemassi.it/index.php?menuid=3
- knodi123 10y agoThat vimeo short looks like it was exactly as grueling as he wanted it to be. I mean, he spent several seconds looking at a motionless room at, what, 5 fps? Don't get me wrong, I've spent hundreds of dollars building a third-rate home security system from scratch, and it's almost to a useable state. But it's hard because I want to do it the hard way. I could have something much, much better for less money if I was actually focused on building quality efficiently.
- H4CK3RM4N 10y agoOn the topic of home security systems, have you watched Home Alone with localhost(https://youtu.be/zkzlc76wJ6k https://youtu.be/zkzlc76wJ6k)? It covers someone else building their own security system.
- knodi123 10y agoNo, but that's awesome. Thanks!
- mulmen 10y agoThe difference is that your home security system is not an artistic expression.
- xiphias 10y agoIt looks like it had 0 success, maybe even less than 4 years work's worth of revenue (I couldn't find any data on it), so the conclusion should be the opposite: even if people slow other people down by getting on agreement, the final quality is usually better.
- sosuke 10y agoIt isn't even available for sale yet is it? I didn't get any impression about 0 success. Amazon is saying 2017 (unavailable)
- xiphias 10y agoActually you're right. Still, I don't see any data proving the headline in the title by any metric. The whole article is just an advertisement.
- zck 10y agoI wouldn't be surprised if anyone who takes four years to animate a film alone doesn't measure success solely in financial terms.
- xiphias 10y agoProbably not, it was just my expectation to see some beautiful animation that a team wouldn't be able to do after the headline. I still remember when I watched Lion King in the theatre when I was about 10 years old, and I was very sad when Disney shut down the hand-made animation studio. I would love to see something similar, but in my eyes this comes nothing close to those movies.
- ant6n 10y agoIt's going to come out on March 28 for viewing online, right now on preorder: http://novaseedmovie.com/watch-nova-seed/ http://novaseedmovie.com/watch-nova-seed/
- rhizome 10y ago
- Apocryphon 10y agoIt's quite ironic that he began his career at BioWare, given the current kerfuffle over Mass Effect: Andromeda animating horridly.
- magic_beans 10y agoI may have missed it in the article, but what was Nick DiLiberto's source of income during the 4 years he worked on his film??
- 6stringmerc 10y agoThis is relevant to my interests as well, as art in the US isn't produced in a vacuum and economic conditions what they are...it's not to take away from the achievement, but rather understand the context upon which something was produced. If two people both make an identical origami swan, but one had the luxury of leisure and tutoring while the other was created between shifts working in a coal mine using self-directed creativity, well, I mean that's part of the story.
- ryanmarsh 10y agoIs it fair to draw parallels to software development here? Is it better to toil in obscurity until your masterpiece is complete or is it better to involve others early? We can see examples of both. Curious what HN thinks.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- dasmoth 10y agoI'm not sure I'd draw the line quite that starkly -- it's possible to build software or animate a film solo, but still get feedback from users or trial watchers. I certainly believe that having a single mind -- or at most two or three people who understand one another super-well -- setting direction often leads to better results than strict "team" efforts.
- akkartik 10y agoI'm biased[1], but the lesson I draw from this for software isn't about collaborating or not, it's about avoiding division of labor. When working with someone on a project don't "design an interface" and then work alone on either side of it. Work together all over it. [1] http://akkartik.name/about http://akkartik.name/about
- digikata 10y agoWith respect to software and art - it makes me think of the author(s) of Dwarf Fortress where what is accomplished probably would have been severely diluted without the singularity of vision of a single primary programmer. Regarding more production oriented software environments - it reminds me of chapters in the Mythical Man Month discussing the considerations to team size/composition and it's tension with consistency of design and communications cost.
- ralfd 10y agoThe Dwarf Fortress authors are lucky though, that people care enough for their niche to donate money to them. They are not under pressure to produce something finished or follow some traditional release cycle.
- diogenescynic 10y agoVenture Brothers is a good example of this. Venture Brothers is created by a very small team over a painstaking few years and that process consistently produces higher-quality content and a better story than their peers.
- linkregister 10y agoDid anyone else experience bizarre scrolling behavior on the desktop site?
- cwyers 10y agoThat's one hell of an accomplishment, to be sure. But I take great issue with the headline. What's better about it? The guy was wearing basically a hand-cast to let him draw through the injury he was inflicting to himself with that workload. The animation itself doesn't seem to be that good -- I mean, your mileage may vary and different people have different sensitivities, but it looks like one of the ways you animate a film by yourself is drawing fewer frames per second than a traditional studio animation, and for me that looks below the threshold where it's comfortable to watch, and I couldn't imagine sitting through 80 minutes of it. It gives me a headache. In terms of art... man, I'd really rather sit through a Studio Ghibli movie, I well and truly would.
- wodenokoto 10y agoI think the headline is a reference to his working style. The article claims he is extremely productive alone, but not as much in teams. So it is better (for this animator) to work alone.
- H4CK3RM4N 10y agoI think it's also trying to suggest that his cartoon is more internally consistent/idiosyncratic than something produced in teams would be.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- alphonsegaston 10y agoFrom a growth-oriented perspective, it's a giant investment in cultivating his talent. I'm sure after 4 years of working this hard, he can draw circles around most of his peers. He's also probably developed techniques for boosting his creativity and motivation that others might lack.
- Filligree 10y ago> I'm sure after 4 years of working this hard, he can draw circles around most of his peers. Assuming he's still capable of drawing at all. It looks like he's ruined his wrist.
- rosser 10y agoI have an acquaintance working on a similar project, a CG film titled "White Tiger Legend". He's been a VFX artist on many films you've seen (LOTR and the Hobbit movies, Avatar, the Matrix trilogy, &c), and has been plugging away at this the entire time I've known him. It's very much a passion project for him, much like "Nova Seed" seems to be for DiLiberto. He isn't working entirely alone (he's got actors — though as a Kung Fu black belt, he's doing most of the motion capture for the fight scenes himself — voice talent, a composer for the score, &c), but it's very much his vision, and his baby. This kind of thing takes discipline and dedication of a sort most of us can't even imagine, let alone execute.
- thenomad 10y agoSpeaking as someone who did something similar a few years ago (entire significant-length CGI animated film solo-ish) - thanks. That (your last line) is really nice to read. (And if you haven't, please do tell him what you wrote there - he's probably struggling more than he lets on to finish his work, and a bit of encouragement and praise goes a long way, particularly when you're working solo.)
- everyone 10y agoI feel that way about making games. Imo the most efficient team size is 1. It will take longer, but it will take less man-hours and the product will be superior.
- tyrust 10y agoBold claims. >take less man-hours Citation? >the product will be superior This is subjective. There are very good games to come out studios of 1-2 developers and studios of hundreds of developers.
- everyone 10y agoI claim nothing, please see "Imo" above. When you work by yourself: You never compromise. You dont need to spend time communicating with other members of the team. You dont have errors due to miscommunication. You dont have disagreements. Meetings to decide things happen in your head and take a few minutes instead of hours. You spend 0 time coordinating the team. Project/time management of the team becomes a triviality rather than a full-time managment job.
- NeutronBoy 10y agoYou also need to be a master at every piece of the puzzle, rather than being able to focus your efforts.
- Retric 10y agoEven on teams people need to work outside their mastery. So, that's less of an issue than you might think.
- failrate 10y agoI disagree. The amount of time it takes me to produce art at the level of polish required to suit the games I develop is far longer than it takes my artist friends to create better work. Same with music and just about everything else other than the design and (arguably) the programming. If I had the budget to hire one person for each major discipline, I would.
- rl3 10y agoThis is a discipline where machine learning could vastly accelerate productivity. Imagine having automated interpolation between frames. Hand-draw every 5 frames, render out to 60 fps. Not to mention automated style coherence between artists. Future artists will likely indirectly manipulate their art, influencing various forms of machine learning that will do most of the leg work. In a way, matte painting artists already work in similar fashion. Their art usually begins as pre-existing images that are manually blended into a coherent image, with original work added later.
- olavk 10y agoAlmost all animation is fully computer animated these days. Even Disney have given up on hand drawn animation. So when a film is hand-drawn like this it is a very deliberate choice to eschew computer animation.
- rl3 10y agoWhat I was suggesting is that machine learning could make the hand-drawn style viable again from a productivity standpoint. Modern digital techniques aren't without their drawbacks, hence why hand-drawn is often viewed as superior. A machine learning workflow augmenting hand-drawn might be the best of both worlds.
- TFortunato 10y agoTo play devil's advocate, I think what was suggested is that for the artists who do this kind of work, the eschewing of using a computer IS what makes this, if not superior, at least their preferred method of working. For at least some artists doing this work, the whole point is that everything you see is drawn by hand because they want to do that work, not for lack of a better tweening algorithm, machine learned or otherwise.
- rl3 10y agoFair enough, but some day interpolated renders may be completely indistinguishable. The only benefit to completely hand-drawn work by then could very well be satisfying the artist's own preference.
- ficklepickle 10y agoFor those in Vancouver, it is playing at the Rio Theatre tomorrow as part of a double-feature. See you there!!
- Jack000 10y agoI'll be there! Throw up the "Y" hand sign if you're from HN, we can have a little hn meetup.
- sebringj 10y agoI feel his pain in the brain from coding an entire startup from scratch with ios/android apps, website, kiosks and backend using 4 different technologies because i generally dislike coding with others because they have this nasty thing called an opinion. Obviously this is a personality flaw in any case.
- ourmandave 10y agoI would worry that you get a lot better as you go so that by the 3rd year, your starting work looks shoddy by comparison and you have to go back and re-do a lot. Like code I wrote 6 months ago looks like schlock, but that's not something anybody sees.
- phonon 10y agoReminds me of the Star Fox fan movie...also a stunning solo effort. The author live-streams his animation work. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uieM18rZdHY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uieM18rZdHY
- archagon 10y agoIncredibly inspiring, to be sure, but I can't help but wonder: how do you iterate and learn over the course of such a long-haul project? For me, the creative process involves exploring a lot of dead ends until I find the right path or develop my skills sufficiently. If you're doing one scene a day for four years straight, how do you end up with a consistent product at the end? How do you apply what you've learned to the mountain of drawings you've already put behind you? Also, tangentially, how do you make money when you're working 15-hour days on your passion project for 4 years straight? Anyway, I'm really looking forward to watching this! Any Bay Area screenings in the near future?
- zanny 10y agoPassion projects are rarely profitable. You make them for you - because you are compelled to. By definition of the production, nobody else wants it as much as you do, so you are not going to find anyone who would value it more than your own times worth, which is usually what it takes to get salaried or hourly employment. You can definitely kickstart something like this, though. Once you have something great out there, making a trailer and pitching it to the Internet and hoping to get enough money to live off while making it is a possibility. It is just never a certainty. Any artistic passion project must be done for the final product, not for any hopeful long term fiscal reimbursement for it, because its success is bound to how much the people that come into contact with it agree with your valuation of your own work. The real question is, how in the 21st century are more people not able to pursue their passions like this.
- dcw303 10y agoOnly slightly related to your tangent, but I've been wondering about the economics of funding a solo indie game project. From what I've seen on Twitter, most of these seem like passion projects as well, but the creators are very much looking for a source of income. At the risk of wandering even more off topic, it's pretty dispiriting when you see the leaders of the pixel art community with 20k+ followers begging to do a commission for for 25 bucks. That's not my definition of success.
- _Codemonkeyism 10y agoVoices of a Distant Star comes to mind. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voices_of_a_Distant_Star https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voices_of_a_Distant_Star
- zczc 10y agoMade me think about Yuri Norshteyn's project started in 1981, animated by husband and wife team, and still not finished (36 years so far). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Overcoat_(animated_film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Overcoat_(animated_film)