NETFLIX + HIGHER GROUND + JANELLE MONAE / WE THE PEOPLE
Spearheaded by Chris Nee, Kenya Barris, and Michele and Barack Obama, and directed by Oscar Winner Everett Downing, We The People is a love letter to the civic systems of the United States. The incredible Janelle Monae performs her original song, “Stronger”, for episode eight of the series entitled We the People.
I feel super lucky to have been a part of something this meaningful and impactful. I got to work with some of the most talented and giving people at BUCK for this project, and I think we created something truly special and unique. This was also my very first project where I served as Lighting Lead, which I am so grateful for.
STYLE TEST
To test the 2D paper-cut style and its functionality in 3D, we created this render test with an orbiting camera to see how well it would hold up. Like any stylized 3D, this was a lot more complicated to set up than it seems, but it was a super fun challenge to figure out.
Big props to Wing Sze Lee, Irmak Semiz, and Tina Chao for their modeling, lighting, and look dev help. And of course, we couldn’t have done it without Alex Dingfelder who used this test to create a proprietary Nuke script for the lookdev/lighting/comping process that we used for the rest of the film.
Below is the style frame that the above test is based on, by the fantastic James Noellert.
MODELING + LOOK DEVELOPMENT
I worked on character modeling and look development for Mandy, Herbert, and Eliza, as well as some of their outfit variations (Eliza has a ton).
One challenge was getting the nose outlines to work as cleanly in all angles - for most cases, we ended up creating two nose outline variations, one for the front view and one for the three-quarter view which the animators would have to toggle on and off. We achieved the nose outline with 2Sided shaders and backface culling.
In this project, modeling was look development (which was also lighting). We established early on that nothing on the face could cast shadows, something that could easily give away the 3D nature of the models. What looked appealing in a Matcap shader in Zbrush did not translate at all to Vray Toon shading, so we had to develop the shaders in tandem with the modeling process. We ended up not using subdivision for the final render, but we did smooth their normals to get the sketchy, noisy shadow break. This also helped us keep the jagged edges for the silhouettes of the characters, which helped add to that paper-cut feel.
I was also responsible for modeling and look development for the the interior Bodega sets, and the props that are used in this scene. We created two unique sets for the two shots that take place in the bodega.
LIGHTING + COMPOSITING
I was responsible for lighting and compositing for several shots for this project.
It goes without saying that lighting and comp for this short was nothing like I’d ever done before. Having very specific target frames provided by design made color matching and lighting decisions very straightforward, but on the other hand, matching them exactly was no easy task. An inordinate number of light blockers were used in the making of this film, as well as a criminal amount of light linking.
Shading, Lighting, and Comp were all intertwined in this project because of the unique Nuke pipeline we created for this short. The toon shaders were set up to be a Red + Green ramp that we would later matte in Nuke, with the diffuse map connecting to the red channel and the shadow map coming into the green. The proprietary script also added drop shadows for a layered paper effect, and it had controls to dial in noisy edges.
A defining feature of the concept art that we brought into final lighting was also the sketchy shadow texture. We automated a way for the texture to boil without swimming in 3d space while being projected from the render camera. We also had to be very selective about where we placed that texture so it wouldn’t distract from the overarching story.
Big props to the rest of the CG team - Kien Hoang, Alfonso Petersen, Arvid Volz, Tim Krakiowak, Elias Glasch, Marina Czarnecki, Sourush Ghaffarian and Brian Yu for being rockstars!
Produced at BUCK. More details and credits here.