Speechless - but not Because the Cat's got Your Tongue Creating a horde of characters and animating them is generally a job for a large studio - but the talented team at Job, Joris & Marieke studios did it themselves using Maxon Cinema 4D.

Creativity can work in mysterious ways, which can also be said about the short film 'Mute' that was based on a cut that Joris suffered while swimming: The cut looked like a mouth so he started joking around and made is toe "talk". Job and Marieke thought it was disgusting - but it gave them a great idea for a short film!

Job, Joris and Marieke are actually designers but they all were yearning to do animation. After the basic storyboard had been finished, the got turned to Cinema 4D and started character development. They needed numerous characters who would all create their own mouth. In fact, the entire cast is made up of only three different characters whose look was varied using textures. "To find the right wardrobe for our characters, we researched people named Dieter, Klaus, Marcy and Cindy online. Surprisingly enough, people with these names had the exact look we wanted for our characters," states a smiling Marieke.

Everything from a chainsaw to a kitchen knife, a hand mixer and a record were used to perform the operations. "Since we only had three base models for all characters, modifying the geometry to create each of these effects was not possible. We used sub-polygon displacement maps instead. This was perfect for creating individual mouths for each character. Even the guy who uses a chainsaw to create his mouth turned out just as we planned," said Joris.

'Mute' looks very elaborate - and indeed it was not trivial considering the fact that the team had never before created such a complex animation: Four minutes of "cutting edge" animation with a heavy dose of dark humor. "Thanks to Cinema 4D 's intuitive interface, we were able to quickly learn what we needed to know to animate our characters. It only took us about three months to finish the film," remembers Job.

Since its debut, 'Mute' was nominated for the 'Golden Calf' award at the Dutch Film Festival and was also awarded top honors in the Dutch Playground Festival's 'Best Independent' category. Surely this is only the tip of the iceberg since 'Mute' will be shown at numerous other festivals in the coming months. We wish Job, Joris & Marieke the best of luck!

"Making of" video:
www.vimeo.com/78911041