| Making of Bee In The Bonnet: |
| The ambitious and passionate team of interns at DNA Inc. ideated, storyboarded, strategized and executed "Bee In The Bonnet" in 60 days flat. Significant planning went into the making to comply with the self-imposed deadline. It was decided to endow Bob with a rotund frame for the sake of humour while the Bee would have streaks of naughty wickedness to add drama and elevate the humour arising from the peculiar situation that Bob faced. Before commencing modeling, the interns enacted the parts of Bob and Bee to explore, fish out and freeze expressions for use while animating them. "Bee in the Bonnet" was completed within the budgeted time and with the planned "high-definition"quality. Software deployed Maya 2009, Digital Fusion, Photoshop and Maya 2009 Backburner for Rendering. Concept and Pre-Production The team discussed threadbare, all the precautions to be taken in order to achieve the planned hi-definition quality along with a set of ideas for the character's histrionics. Akin to a professionally made 3D Animation film at any mainstream Animation studio, the complete production design comprising the storyboard and visual development was carefully planned prior to commencing production of "Bee in the Bonnet". Modeling A facial expression sheet was drafted, depicting all the required emotions, which helped in modeling the head and generating facial blend shapes of Bob and the Bee. Apart from the character sheets, the team prepared a colour sheet for use when texturing the model. The "turn a round" (front, side, rear & three quarter views with both full body and a head close-up) was scanned in and the front and side views were imported into Maya and used as image planes for further guidance. The end result was nice, clean caricature models which were kept to the grid for better deformation. The final mesh was achieved and the image plane helped attain the right proportions. Animation MAKING OF BEE IN THE BONNET: ANIMATION PROCESS The short film 'Bee In The Bonnet' was another great project for the team which hurried to animate the film immediately after completing 'YUGAPURUSH'. It was a refreshing experience moving from semi-realistic to full-cartoon Animation style. Before commencing production, the team clearly planned the Animation style, especially for the Bee, as the character has streaks of wickedness in contrast to Bob who is a plump and funny guy. Acting sessions at dailies time helped the animators explore the characters in-depth. Enacting and animating the Bee character was immensely enjoyable as is evident in the film. For finalizing the acting styles and timing of the characters, the team started animation from the third scene where Bob sees the bee coming out of the bonnet. All the shots with main poses or story telling poses of characters were blocked. After Blocking Approval all the main breakdowns were added and then, the Animation Line-Up was taken up to check the story line, acting hook-ups, pose hook-ups etc. All the minor iterations were completed before commencing the detailed blocking which was done with the addition of all the main breakdowns, other in-between passes, facial in-betweens and timing corrections. In the First Pass, some more details in body movements in smoothed curves were added Second Pass was done for secondary actions, follow-throughs and more facial details. After the Second Pass, the team took one more Animation Line-Up for viewing the entire performances of the characters afresh before the final animation approvals. The team then discussed minor flaws in the Bee's expressions in order to improve upon them. The Second-Pass Line-Up helped fine-tune the actions for the Final-Pass Animation." |