Title : STRANGE BEASTS
Genre : Sci-fi
Duration : 5 minutes
Released : March 2017
A sci-fi short about augmented reality. "Strange Beasts" is an augmented reality game. It allows you to create and grow your own virtual pet. How far can it go?
The Film’s imdb page
CAST & CREW
Starring: TIMOTHY RENOUF
POPPY POLIVNICK
Writer/director : MAGALI BARBE
Music and Sound Design by : PIERRE VEDOVATO
DoP : ANTHONY GUIRY
First Assistant: AMELIE GUYOT
Second Assistant: VINCENT AUPETIT
Sound Mixer : MICHAEL CHUBB
Makeup and Hair : BRIDGET CROTTY
Runner : TYRONE PAUL
Grading by : LEWIS CROSSFIELD
VFX Supervisor: PERI McCAFFERTY
Creatures Artist: DEAN FRATER
Creatures Designer: JONATHAN DJOB NKONDO
Rigger: MAICKEL PASTA
Animators : JOFFREY ZEITOUNI
PHILIPPE MOINE
Rendering and Compositing : MARIO UCCI
RICK THIELE
Tracking : PEANUT
FESTIVALS AWARDS & SELECTIONS
PRESS AND PUBLICATIONS
BEHIND THE SCENES
Thanks for watching my film ! If you liked it and are curious about when and how it was done, have a look here !
‘Strange Beasts’ had its cast&crew & friends screening at Framestore, London (February 2017) and its official online release on ‘Short of the week’ (March 2017). 24 hours later, it's a staff pick! Yipee! It even has its own little imdb page. ‘Strange Beasts’ is a self-funded short film. Thank you so much everyone who got involved.
It started in January 2016...With time to kill during winter, I watched and listened a lot about virtual reality, integrated reality, supposedly the ‘next big thing’. I first just wanted to make a hoax video. The original idea was a fake commercial about a pretend VR or AR game, that would be cool enough to make people excited.
To make the hoax work, it had to look and sound real. So I watched even more videos about Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, the latest game trends, the future of gaming, the latest gadgets in development… Then I quickly found out that there was already a lot of those ‘demo videos’ online, and I didn’t see the point of making one more. So I turned my ‘hoax’ into a narrative, which I think translates how I feel about Augmented Reality : It's a mix of fascination and a bit of fear too!
February 2016: Time to gather a team, starting with my friend Djob (his instagram here), who’s an exceptionally talented designer (and storyboard artist, animator, artist…)
For the hoax to work properly, the game had to look cool. It was key to have good creature designs. Then my friend Dean, a talented concept artist, got involved and is responsible for all the modeling, texturing and CG concepts of both creatures. Walter was way too scary at the beginning!
March/April 2016: Meanwhile, I started to organize the shoot, presented my idea to a few friends, then friends of friends, etc… Until I get my team complete. It was a small on-set team (11 people, 1 person per task, literally) but a great one! I rent a bit of material and get the authorisation to shoot inside of a VFX house in Soho. I needed a ‘high-tech'-office looking place, and that one worked well. Two-days shoot, Saturday and Sunday.
The actor Tim was introduced to me by Amelie and Pery, founders of the VFX studio 'Peanut' who supervised the VFX of “Strange Beasts”.
May/June/July 2016: I put together a first edit and started to work on the UI, CGI, and compositing.
August/September 2016: I get more help for ‘step 2’ of the CGI. My friend Maickel Pasta for the rigging, Joffrey Zeitouni and Phillipe Moine for animation. That’s when I met Pierre, the sound designer and composer, based in Paris.
October 2016: When the anim was close to final, I got help from Rick and Mario, founders of the studio Red Knuckles, former Art directors at Passion Pictures (where I met them). They did the rendering and compositing of the creatures.
January/February 2017: Red Knuckles delivered the final rendered/comped sequences. Anthony (the DOP) put me in touch with Lewis at Electric Theatre Collective, who did the final grading of the movie and Pierre delivered all the files for the final mix. Yipee!