Stills from the short film Gul(flower). These unretouched images show some of the detail and texture that went into the film.
Opening title of Gul (flower). I had a lot of fun, trying my hand at some experiments in typographic design.
A lot of experimentation went into creating not only the pipes, but the whole layout and emotional impact of the space in this scene.
Part of the joy of working on closeups was to really bring in the viewer to the story and characters.
This was the first animation shot of Gul. To see her come to life after so many years and so much work at each step of the process, was one of the most incredible things I have every felt.
Creating negative shapes with the pipes allowed for some fun compositions.
This was an image I had in my mind for many years and was the basis for a lot of color and shape choices for the elements in this environment.
I loved playing with claustrophobia and rich saturated colors in these scenes.
It was a real challenge to boil down these sequences into core shots to tell the story. Seeing the flow of this shot from previous shots to those that followed was really satisfying for me.
This is a shot I had imagined for many years. The decision to go with pipes instead of cables was largely due to the aesthetic you see here.
I tried to use contrast of shapes, color and movement throughout the film to heighten the emotions of the story.
In compositing, I thought of the shots as paintings in terms of applying washes of color.
There were so many things, like the design of these fingers that I hoped would add to the richness of the world, without pulling the viewer out of the moment.
The machines, seen here and in a few other shots were modeled in great detail, though I knew that they would be seen fleetingly. They were the first models I built and their quality set the bar for everything that came after.
This was another visual that had been in my mind for years, as I was developing the story. The technical side of it ended up being easier than I thought. Animation was a lot easier than trying to get a simulation to do what I wanted.
Many moments were simplified to their essence with the idea that the concept underlying should be strong enough to evoke the correct subconscious ideas in the viewer’s mind.
I really loved seeing these characters in closeup, but my view of the story and the purpose of each shot made it easy to work out compositions based off that need.
