Hunter Saves Christmas

Shortly after the release of our first short film, Next Flight Home, the Edmonton Oilers reached out to us with an amazing opportunity - create a narrative short film for the holiday season to be released in arena and online. We were just finishing off another narrative project at the time, and our team jumped at the chance to keep that momentum going. The Oilers knew that they wanted to explore an animation in 3D, and that they wanted to run with the idea of a pop-up book. Outside of those bounds, the brief was wide open. So, we wrote three possible stories - one that was much too somber and emotional, one that had no real story but a lot of exciting holiday imagery, and this one - Hunter Saves Christmas. The team at the Oilers loved the mixture of an easily digestible story, the integration of their players and mascots, and a progression doused in hockey related references. Below you can view the finished video, and immediately below that, a full breakdown of how we went from a blank slate to the fully formed video.

Process

We love getting to share some of the process that goes into creating our animations. Like most things in life, there is a mountain of unseen work that goes on behind the scenes to arrive at the final product, and we always like to take a bit of time at the end of a project to feature it. The writing, the drawing, the designs that all inform the final video are featured below as a way to show you how our team started with an open brief to create a holiday themed pop-up book, and ended up with the finished 90 second animation that can be seen above.

It all starts here. A simple, old fashioned text editor. Before any drawings, models, lights, or movement begins, we spent a few days just writing. Finding a simple story that celebrated the holidays, the Edmonton Oilers, and the sport of hockey that we could communicate in 90 seconds turned out to be a bit of a challenge. However, after a few days brainstorming ideas, and some helpful input and review from the team at the Oilers, we were able to write out, shot by shot, a detailed outline of the final video. Once the Edmonton Oilers gave the green light on the script, it was off to start drawing out the scenes and creating the first animatic.

Scene by scene, shot by shot, we slowly pieced together the visuals of what would become the final animation. Working quickly with a pencil and pen, our team blocked out the bones of each scene in the style that we were aiming for in the video. This allowed us to edit together an animatic within a few days that had the timing, layout, and rough design for the client to sign off on before any major time was spent developing scenes in the computer. Once the story was visualized through pen and paper, it was time to give it life in the computer.

The four frames above represent the visuals that were passed on to the client at each stage of the process. Starting off, a basic animatic was approved with roughly drawn out frames representing each scene. From there, we illustrated each different scene as a 2D vector to better represent the final color, shape, and proportions that would be converted to 3D. Once those illustrations were approved by the Oilers, our team moved to building them all in 3D. We were able to take the vectors into 3D and build the meshs based on the approved design in a quick and straightforward process. This, paired with material development, lighting, and background set modeling, leads to the final image on the bottom right. Once a 3D still was approved for each scene, we moved into animation with pages that were ready to render once they were in motion. Following these steps allowed the client to be included at each step of the process, see the progress being made, and removed the need for large scale changes once we moved into 3D.

Production Workflow

Like we described above, there are a lot of steps that each video takes from initial concept to completion. At each step, there are many creative decisions to be made about how things are shaped, how they move, and what they sound like. Our team has a wide ranging skill set, and working with designers, animators, and composers, we were able to deliver a captivating, fun story to share with the Oilers fan base.