CG takes shape - 7th December 2007
So what have we been up to recently? Three letters: C.G.I. for months now we have been working with Louis, Rhys and Jon from Media Hungry Ltd. A young new media and CG effects company.
Like so many elements of Hawk – this has been a real baptism of fire, jumping right in at the deep end aiming for photo-real results on zero budget and fitting it in between full time job workloads. The work to date has yielded astonishing results, so much so that we don't want to reveal too much yet about what is and what isn't real, preferring to wait until a later date to show the magical reveal of the details of the work that Media Hungry are putting in.
The pictures here show our recent meeting in regards to a major Hawk shot. Also in attendance was Hugh McDonald – one of our compositors who is kindly fitting in hours on Hawk in-between working on big projects like ‘The Golden Compass' and ‘Brideshead Revisited'.
Both Hugh and Emma Clifton (one of our other compositors) have been liaising with Media Hungry on handovers of 3-D CGI elements that will then be comped in alongside 2-D original footage. There are many variables with such handovers and the key as with everything is communication between everyone on the many levels of animation, lighting, and render passes in order to achieve the best, seamless, unnoticeable ‘natural' CG that Mac the Director is after.
It's all taking shape, and requires a constant dialogue back and forth between director and animator to achieve the necessary level of realism. Media Hungry themselves will be putting together a blog on the technical aspects of what we have been doing and continue to do in the run up to the New Year, so look out for that pretty soon.
Before I go – 1 final low res render of a CG element which is in it's very early stages of development, texturing, refinement, and animation….The Hawk!
Matt Jones
Producer
Harping on - 5th September 2007
Stuart Hancock (Composer) and I boarded the 10:15am train from Paddington, London to Cardiff Central (South Wales) for what was to be another busy day on HAWK.
Today's mission was to record the world renowned Welsh harpist Catrin Finch. This was a goal of Stuart's and mine for a quite some time and we were absolutely delighted when she said she would contribute to our labour of love.
Once we arrived at Cardiff we had to get another train three stops on to Taffs Well, just on the outskirts of Cardiff city. When we arrived we were greeted by a familiar face, Hwyel Wrigley – Catrin's husband and our sound engineer for the Serendipity choir recording session.
We arrived at their home, greeted by their friendly dog Scooby. Hwyel and Stu got down to prepping everything for the recording while I took a few snaps and looked on in awe at the size of the grand old harps in their studio.
The recording began at around 1:30pm and the guys just ploughed through it, skipping lunch.
There was a lot to record before we had to get our train home later that day and we wanted to be sure we would not compromise the quality of the performance.
This gave Catrin the chance to do a few takes of each section in various styles giving Stuart the luxury of a choice of takes for key scenes throughout the film.
We finished up at around 5:30pm and had time to nip up to see Hwyel and Catrin's new studio which is currently under construction and should be finished in the next couple of months.
Then it was straight back to Cardiff Central for Stu and I with just enough time to grab a bite to eat and a quick hello to our Hawk star Robert Gwyn Davin who lives in Cardiff and had popped over to the station to say hello. Then the 7:25pm train back to London.
What next? The completion of the sound design, atmos & effects, recording a Welsh choir-boy for one of the score solo parts, finishing of the all the 3D & 2D VFX, a grade, picture online and a final 5.1 Dolby mix and we'll be done. Then its festival time…..
M J McMahon
Director
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