Production Recap June 26th to 30th

Last week on Pet Projects…

Those were Mack Bo's last days on the project, and we can't thank him enough for all his hard work and kindness. Goodbyes also mean that we are reaching the end of production very soon; it's time to move towards post-production steps!

As promised to Mariana, Rik sent our composer the locked edit at the end of the week. With that in hand, she'll be able to do some final tweaking on the overal composition and then record some live instruments! Yes, for the first time, we should have live music in an Open Movie, something Francesco is particularly excited about.

During this week, we also started the conversation on the opening title card, and the end credits. For the latter, we'd like to prepare some behind the scenes footage to incorporate - extra work that should be worth it for the audience! Rik mentioned this to Mariana and she promptly created a first version of music for those end credits. Already approved! Now we only have to... make them. Planning and assignation will happen soon, in parallel Vivien and Rik will work on the title card.

Lighting is still moving forward quite smoothly, often waiting for final animation, FX or matte paintings. As Andy and Beau are progressing in the sequences of the movie, we all discussed the blinking red lights of the rocket, when it starts falling down. This is not an easy effect to pull off as we need to have a cohesive rhythm across all shots, a cohesive light and intensity. It is then a joint effort between animation and lighting.

Animation has started on the last sequence, with Mack Bo working on all three shots. The first two got approved, but the last one is still WIP (work in progress) and will have to be finished by Rik or Pablico. A team effort until the end!

Simon has kept working on FX, changing his smoke set up to match the final (and revised) look for the first couple of sequences. We always try to avoid work that won't be featured, but sometimes we just, can't. Because both Rik and Vivien were busy with many tasks at once, the smoke effect reference took a bit of time to be clearly defined, thus creating more back and forth with Simon. Luckily, as the Creators Who Share that we are, his first set up is not lost and has been released as part of the Blender 3.6 LTS assets. Lucky users!

The goal for the next week is to get all clouds up and running and more FX done so that lighting can get more shots fully approved. Rik and Pablico have two more weeks to finish the remaining shots, which should be possible if nothing breaks. (Demeter would nod with a grin, here).

No production blog next week as this producer will be off, but a production log video might drop in the next days. Keep an eye on our YouTube channel!

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Pet Projects is currently in production and the progress can be followed here on the Blender Studio website.

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