Omar and His Skyhook

Director Doug Purver uses CINEMA 4D to create the magical world of Omar and His Skyhook. The short film is an artful blend of live action, still photography, 3D and other graphic effects.

He isn’t exactly sure why but for as long as he can remember Doug Purver has been obsessed with fish. So it’s no surprise that in his new film 'Omar and His Skyhook' (which was included in last month’s LA Shorts Film Festival) fish have starring roles—most notably the evil villain.

Purver, a New York City-based director whose one-man creative services studio  roadnorth began the project as part of Psst!3, a collaborative film project in which teams of directors, animators, composers and designers team up to create short works. He quickly realized however that, in addition to doing his segment of the larger team-driven piece, he had enough material to create his own film using MAXON’s CINEMA 4D and Adobe After Effects.

The 2:53 min. film tells the story of Omar, a little boy who yearns to go fishing with his grandpa. But when the old man shoos Omar away so he can continue napping he sets out on his own fanciful journey. As Omar casts his fishing line into the sky to catch one of the fish swimming in the clouds an enormous, evil fish swoops in, snatching the boy up and sending him on a very unexpected adventure that artfully blends live-action footage, still photography, 3D and other graphic effects.

Inspired by the Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton films, Purver decided to have the piece be silent with a grainy, flickering look. Music and sound design were created by Q Department. It took about a year of working on and off for Purver and his crew of talented friends to finish the film, which was included in SHOOT’s New Directors Showcase event in May. Check out the film here: (http://www.roadnorth.com).

Once the footage was complete, including some green screen shots of Omar flying and being yanked into the air after the fish has taken hold of his fishing pole, experienced editor Ryan McKenna did a loose edit before the compositing and animating began. “I’ve worked with Ryan in the past and he knows that live action isn’t always everything; graphics and effects shots take a lot more time to complete,” says Purver.

Sweeping skylines featured in the scenes where Omar goes fishing in a park were digitally created by matte painter Mara Smalley using photographs and textures brought together in Photoshop. To populate the sky with fish, Purver used stock models that he purchased and either retextured or animated in CINEMA 4D. The most challenging fish to make was the one Omar turns into at the end of the film, Purver says. This was because he started with a very basic model and added a lot of small details to connect the fish to Omar and the feathers on his helmet. “I used CINEMA 4D’s HAIR module to add very thin hairs that streamed from the tips of the fish’s wings and came from under his chin and around to his wings where they meet his head,” he explains.

Purver, who has been using CINEMA 4D for three years, was concerned about animating the fish in a realistic way considering that he didn’t have the time, budget or experience to rig up each one. So he was happy to find that he was able to use the MoGraph module’s Spline Wrap deformer to get the right flap and curl of the fish's bodies as they swam through the clouds. “CINEMA 4D is amazing to me because I could go in there with little knowledge and figure out how to do something that looks really great,” he says.

Omar’s nemesis, the evil fish, was created by 3D modeler Dave White using Autodesk’s Maya. Once the model was finished, Purver imported it into CINEMA 4D and used BodyPaint 3D to texture it. Again, he says with a laugh, “I was learning as I worked.” The random, looped animations of fish swimming in the sky were also made in CINEMA 4D before being duplicated with MoGraph’s Cloner Object and repositioned to create small clusters. By placing the fish on a Spline Wrap, Purver was able to create the illusion that the fish was chasing the camera the whole time. “I gave it a lot of kinks and bends so the fish looked like it was flying violently in all different directions,” he explains.

Movie link on MAXON's YouTube channel:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-NjmBx_-1Q&feature=channel_page

Website:
http://www.Roadnorth.com