Working with animated characters has, in a way, sped up the process of producing videos for me. Instead of spending time casting, coordinating schedules, and location scouting, I was immediately generating usable assets.
The same day the band decided to go with an animated idea, I was emailing character ideas. The album art and concept is full of this monstrous imagery. An animated approach allowed us to easily conjure up these demons, versus a lengthy live action prosthetic monster production (which I love dearly). Adobe has this awesome easy to use character generator called Fuse with an already dense customizable library, so we could try out ideas quickly.
After we decided on a look and story based on the album concept, I used the motion capture library from Mixamo (http://www.mixamo.com) to get the character actions I needed.
Then I used Cinema 4D to frame the angles I needed, lighting, and texture the skin to grow mold. I planned to render the skin at a higher sample rate, but I ended up having to sacrifice a few polygons for the sake of the deadline.
After I rendered the character poses into manageable 2D image sequences, I was able to build the sets out in a 3D space in After Effects, and work from my laptop in remote locations any time I could get a moment to myself.
“Putrid Dwelling” broke new ground for me personally as a director. Modern technology has caught up to the speed of our imaginations, and we are now able to realize grand scale visions on laptops in coffee shops. Keep an eye on http://novelconcept.tv for our latest projects!
-Marcos Morales
