First Flight, DreamWorks’ new 3D-animated short, is screening in the coveted spot preceding Over the Hedge. All images courtesy of DreamWorks Animation.

Getting Started
Kyle Jefferson and Cameron Hood were two animators from Toronto that met at DreamWorks, and became best friends over a common dream. Both had a desire to be filmmakers. In the down time during Shark Tale, they came up with the idea for First Flight, a production that took four years total from concept to completion, three years in actual production. “You can only look at the Internet so long, so what we tried to do was take the gap time somewhere positive, to push ourselves, Jefferson suggested.” The First Flight concept about a fastidious businessman that teaches a fledgling bird how to fly caught on with friends and co-workers, and what was an idea between two friends became DreamWorks’ new 3D-animated short film project, screening in the coveted spot preceding the studio’s latest animated feature, Over the Hedge (opening May 19), in New York and Los Angeles.

It was the perfect opportunity for the artists to stretch their wings in a direction they might not otherwise get to go. One artist was working at DreamWorks as a lighter, but on First Flight had the opportunity to set up master rigs. People that were working in technology could work as vfx artists. It also created a sub-culture. Studios usually work on large projects with a large team and artists can get isolated as they buckle down within the pipeline, but on a small project it’s a little club, and everyone hangs out to share ideas and work together.

Jefferson and Hood experimented with a variety of looks before settling on the highly appealing impressionistic one of First Flight. One attempt was a “shower door” look, but they found they were losing a lot of the acting, where they couldn’t read the eyes, the small animations and the clarity of the silhouettes of the hands. The painterly style was inspired by artists such as Joe Soren, Ashley Wood and Odd Nerdum. With the help of Ramone Zibach, a DreamWorks top production designer, they came up with the signature style. “We felt the story lent itself better to that particular look, with what falls away from the camera and what is going to read clear,” Hood said. “We made a lot of choices that could have been risky.”

Flight Takes Wing
An early decision was pantomime, so they focused on subtle cues to portray the character arc, pushing straight lines vs. curves to help support elements of the story. Everything in the male character (Mr. Swift) was a little sharper than it needed to be. According to Hood, “It was subtle undertones on how his world could have hurt him.” For Swift, they focused on straight camera shots and desaturated colors to show the harshness and emptiness in his world. For Bird, the elements were more organic and brighter in color, a subtlety that increasingly became more apparent as the film progressed through the storyline. An added decision was that objects closer to the camera were more tightly rendered, and objects farther away were more abstract, adding an interesting twist to the perspective.

This early concept drawing shows off the painterly style directors Jefferson and Hood chose for the look of the film.

To help strengthen the darks, netting was included in the exposure pass, adding a variance to the black so there were small white dots throughout, so it was not just a flat dark shadow. “The result was the color had this nice moist and blended look,” explained Jefferson. “It helped to strengthen some edges and loosen others.” They also added elements to Swift when he was resurfaced, giving him a bright red nose, bright cheeks, bright blue eyes. “We overdid it so that when we blended the color out and put it back over top he had this nice storybook look, very natural.”

Great Talent
“We were very lucky to have some top talent,” Hood continued. Lead modeler Rachel Tiep-Daniels nailed the idea of lines and curves, building an environment that inspired the directors to find camera moves to show as much of the beautiful things in the set as possible.

Music was one voice that was important in supporting the film. The directors experimented with a variety of styles trying to find the appropriate mood, playing music in the background as they developed the arc. When the opportunity arose to work with James Michael Dooley, who composed portions of the music for Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, Madagascar and The Da Vinci Code, they were thrilled. His score coupled with the story leaves the viewer with a smile and a tear. Jeffrey Katzenberg was just as enthusiastic about the project as anyone. Hood summed up one meeting: “There were times when Jeffrey was literally acting like The Bird. He helped us to step away from the canvas and take a look at the progress. It was a charming moment to say the least to sit on the couch and have Jeffery jump around like The Bird to help get things to read.”

The Bird’s wings proved to be a real challenge, requiring enough mobility to convincingly open and close during two scenes. “That goal doesn’t sound like much but it takes a lot of real estate to give that much control,” Hood explained. It took roughly nine months to achieve the goals they set for the wings alone. In the end, they decided on three birds: one with wings closed, one open and one in transition.