It takes about 3 weeks to create a character in clay. I found it fascinating to learn how much time each part of the process takes.
In the Rigging Department, we met Sabine Heller, Senior Character Technical Director. It is the Rigging Deptartment’s job to make the anatomy of the characters. She makes the joints and strings to connect it all.
Difficult controls are hidden so that animator can create expressions. Main characters take about 6 months, but nim Galuu took 8 months.
Story artist Warren Leonhardt discussed the story board process and how he comes up with his ideas. He spends time visualizing and “making a movie in his mind” to help the creativity flow.
Senior animator David Sloss discussed the computer animation process behind Blue Sky Studio’s “Epic” movie. He showed us how the characters are animated. The animator act outs and videos their characters to understand the feeling and mood of the character. It takes about 40-50 hours a week for 3 1/2 seconds of animation. Wow! Below is a glimpse at what he showed us.
Academy Award winning director Chris Wedge, left, production designer Greg Couch, center, and art director Mike Knapp discuss the animation process behind Blue Sky Studio’s “Epic” movie, Tuesday, Aug. 13, 2013, in Greenwich, CT. (Diane Bondareff/Invision for Twentieth Century Fox)Interesting Facts Learned about Epic
- Avg leafman is 2 inches tall and weighs 2 grams
- Nature inspired everything
- Queen Tara dress white iris train of daisy and honeysuckle
- Look of decay – look Into an old treestump.
- Scout locations – Adirondacks and state parks in Connecticut
The Blue Skies Studio Tour was an amazing experience. My girls and I learned so much about the process of making an animated movie. We are ready to see Epic on Blu-Ray/ DVD!
To win a copy of the Epic DVD, please click here.
To find activity sheets and coloring pages for Epic, please click here
To read all about our walk down the Green Carpet for the Epic Premiere in May, please click here.
I really enjoyed this movie!
And we met Chris at the original junket, it was very exciting!
thanks,
Mitch
How cool is that? Looks like a great day – and so interesting! Glad you had fun.
What a fun experience and ho neat that your kids ere able to come with you! I really want to see this!
Wow! This is so cool! My daughter wants to be an animator. She just started sculpture at our community college yesterday. Of course she says, “You weren’t invited?” Ha! Maybe someday…Thanks for this post. We really enjoyed it!
ok its SO COOL your kids got to go with you!! my kids loooooooooooved this movie. can’t wait to get it on bluray!
That’s so neat the both kids and parents had activities suited just for them. I’ve liked the idea of the movie since I first saw a trailer a long time ago!
What a great experience!! And your girls got their own caricature!! 🙂
That is really cool. I bet it was a lot of fun.
Those sculptures are amazing! I didn’t realize that they still did things that way, even to visualize the characters. I assumed everything was done on a computer.
It STILL amazes me when I see how cartoons are made. It blows my mind that they can mesh all of the scenes together!
Wow – this sounds like an amazing experience!
That is such a cool experience! I’m glad you could share it with your girls.
We JUST got this movie in the mail to watch and I can’t wait to see it with my kids tonight! Looks like you had a blast!
Those sculptures are really neat. Such a great experience.