The Eureka Initiative in the U.K., dedicated to strengthening European competitiveness with innovative technology, developed the Damage software tool to track and manage digital assets for VALIANT, the regions first 3D-animated feature and the maiden project from Vanguard Animation and London-based Ealing Studios.
Now that VALIANT has been released in the U.K. and will bow in mainland Europe in July and Aug. 19 in the U.S. (through Disney), it is hoped that Eureka project E! 3062 Damage will now open up a while new global market for the European animation industry.
Producing a feature-length CGI animation has long been the Holy Grail of many a European studio but, until recently, it has seemed impossible, said Sean Hinton, managing director of Ealing Studios in west London, where VALIANT was produced.
We had a purpose-built facility constructed at Ealing to house the 175 animators necessary to produce VALIANT. But we needed to get the workflow technology right, especially as we were working with less than half the budget and in half the time of our U.S. studio counterparts. The Damage project gave us exactly what we were looking for.
Damage project leader Innovative Animation Services (IAS) is a young company based at Ealing Studios, led by the Hollywood production experience of Buckley Collum. IAS sought a partner that could develop the asset-management technology to be tried out during the production of VALIANT. The answer came from the Limburg University Centre for Digital Media, just outside the Belgian city of Hasselt.
A requirements specification agreed by all user partners of the project was drawn up after a major exercise to research, understand and model the production process and workflow in producing an animated film. The specification and development of a secure, robust database, capable of handling several million items of multimedia content, was created. The software includes an approvals process, enabling a films director to approve assets, sequences and ultimately the whole film.
IAS contends that Damages achievements are significant, as the systems previously created by U.S. studios are custom-made solutions that are not marketed externally. Another European animation studio has already expressed interest in acquiring a license for the Damage software. Licensing to other studios will in turn allow European animation facilities to collaborate efficiently in projects that would previously have been too big for them to undertake on their own. And opportunities have now been created for European animation facilities to participate in U.S.-originated films.
The feedback we have had from those who are familiar with the in-house software used by the U.S. production houses was amazing what wed produced with the Belgians through Eureka was better and smarter than anything theyd seen elsewhere, says Hinton. Their systems have evolved over a number of years, whereas we worked from scratch, with a blank piece of paper, a smaller budget and the benefit of fresh and original ideas from the amazing pool of animation expertise that exists across Europe.
The Eureka Initiative (www.eureka.be) aims to strengthen European competitiveness by promoting cross-border, market-oriented collaborative R&D. It enables industry and research institutes from 35 member countries and the EU to collaborate in a bottom-up approach to developing and exploiting innovative technologies.
Since 1985, substantial public and private funding has been deployed through this intergovernmental network to support leading edge R&D.
Bill Desowitz, former editor of VFXWorld, is currently the Crafts Editor of IndieWire.
