Heartstrings 1: Gijs Hermans & Peter Kortenhoeven

The Boy Who Could Smell the Future, Kurt Nellis, United States. Choice of Peter Kortenhoeven

Gentleman’s Duel, Sean McNally, Fransciso Ruiz, United States. Choice of Peter Kortenhoeven

For an animator, the best bits are the cinematics for promotional purposes. These are sometimes rendered with render software, but also with the in-game engine. Game studios often don’t have the time or money to develop these scenes themselves and contract it out. Studio Blur is one of the companies who are masters at setting up a nice introduction. They do commercial work, but also shorts. Every new short they make reduces you to silence. This recalls the days when you saw better cut scenes in every new generation of games. This is the feeling you get when watching almost anything that Pixar makes. This inspires people to put the bar ever higher. A Gentleman’s Duel is one of the last films I’ve seen that gave me such an inspiration overdose. Nice characters and a straightforward story. Two men contend for a woman. Simplicity is a key aspect in a story. If the story is not simple, it often reduces the quality of the animation. This is what you often see in 3D shorts by graduating students. They tend to forget that a simple and short story also has depth. Emotions don’t need to be stated: work visually and create an impact. To me, a fine example of minimum means with tremendous impact is The Boy Who Could Smell the Future. This short has a straightforward storyline, is funny and personal and can yet be set up within a reasonable amount of time.

Burning Safari, Vincent Aupetit, Jeanne Irzenski, Maxime Maleo, Aurélien Predal, Florent de la Taille, Claude-William Trebutien, France. Choice of Gijs Hermans

When we started graduating in Game Design and Development at HKU, we had big plans for setting up our own game studio and designing big games. To steer ourselves a little in the right direction, we decided to make a prototype of a big Wii game that would help us secure further financing. This game was called Snowball Earth. One method we often use to get inspiration is by watching short animation films. Many of these films that we consider visual inspiration are made by people graduating from French animation schools. The quality of the pre-production and production is awe-inspiring. Burning Safari is a fine case in point. The strength of this film is also that the makers managed to give the small robots distinct characters by means of animation and sound.

Supermoine (SuperMonk), Julien Bagnol, Sebastian Hô, Florian Landouzy, France. Choice of Gijs Hermans

When we designed the first prototypes of what would become the game Swords and Soldiers at Ronimo, we had a number of stock knights who clobbered each other. Although there’s nothing wrong with a bunch of tin men bashing each other’s heads in with an axe, it is helpful to have a theme that lends all this cartoony violence a purpose. This soon led us to the idea of a group of brutal Vikings. Brainstorming, we soon remembered a neat 3D film, Supermoine, made by, again, French students. Supermoine was a huge inspiration, both thematically and stylistically.

This program screened as part of HAFF 2009

Showing in this program