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CGNetworks Feature :: Interview with Marc Craste (Studio AKA)
Studio AKA's Jo Jo in the Stars
Lisa Thurston, 14 September 2004

CGNetworks is pleased to present an interview withMarc Craste of Studio AKA, director of short film Jo Jo in the Stars. Winner of the Best Short Film award at the International 3D Awards 2004, Jo Jo incorporates all the ingredients of a classic romantic tragedy in eleven minutes of gritty black and white footage. CGNetworks talks to Craste about the creation of the short.

CGN: Tell us about Marc Craste. How did you get into animation and how did you end up working for Studio AKA?

I started in the wonderful world of Saturday morning TV animation back in the early eighties. I moved into commercials first as an animator, then directing. A friend of mine taught himself LightWave which I started to utilize in order to help with the more difficult aspects of 2D. In the mid-nineties, I relocated from Sydney to London where I've been directing for Studio AKA ever since. Over the past few years most of my commercial work has been in 3D. Currently I'm working on a promo for Icelandic band Mum.

CGN: What's the story behind Jo Jo in the Stars ? How did you come up with the film – what inspired you?

Jo Jo developed from an idea first explored in a series of mini-shorts that we ran on our website. There had been a good response to those, so we decided to explore the world we had created in a slightly longer format. But whereas the three shorts had been primarily exercises in atmospherics, with Jo Jo I wanted to try my hand at a reasonably coherent storyline and try to engage an audience that wasn't specifically interested in animation per se. As for inspiration, I feel the film owes a lot to films like Eraserhead and Wings of Desire, and of course Tod Browing's Freaks.

'The rescue'

CGN: What specifically were you trying to achieve with the story of Jo Jo in the Stars?

We wanted to see if we could inject some emotion into this little world. I've taken the simplest characters and placed them in a story concerned with some of the grandest themes in life – love, jealousy, self-sacrifice… I wanted to see if despite the odd setting and even odder characters an audience could suspend their disbelief and be swept up in the story.

CGN: Can you elaborate on the concept designs for the main characters?

These were primarily dictated by practical concerns. I knew the film would be self-financed by Studio AKA so everything had to be kept as simple as possible to make it affordable. As it happens, the simple design fits in with what I like anyway. So, for example, during the freak-show sequence, the monsters were for the most part our standard pica model with masks attached. Although there is a little dialogue in the film, the two characters speaking wear masks, thus avoiding any need for workable mouths. And like the characters, the sets were kept to a minimum.

'The Beasts'

concept sketch

'beasts' mesh

'crowds' model

'freakshow'

CGN: Can you elaborate on the technical aspects of creating and animating these characters?

Jo Jo was created using Softimage XSI. The majority of the characters where subdivided polygon models. We used the XSI reference model faculty, which enabled our animators to begin the animation while the characters where still being detailed and approved. The reference model system allowed the work team the ability to easily change the resolution of the sets or characters to suit their individual requirements. The animation was undertaken using both forward and inverse kinematics, with a little help from Softimage's Behavior system to choreograph the hordes of characters.

The textures and materials where mainly inspired by magnifying tiny details of a variety of surfaces. After initial experiments using radiosity rendering techniques it was decided that straight forward CGI lights aided by several particle atmosphere passes yielded the correct visual effect. Rendering was undertaken using Mental Ray, and the whole project was composited together using After Effects and edited on DPS velocity.

CGN: What sort of a team did you have to assist with the production of Jo Jo in the Stars, and how long did it take from concept to completion?

I was incredibly fortunate in having the resources of Studio AKA at my disposal much of the time. There's a team of people here that I can rely on to get stuff on the screen with a minimum of fuss. The film took roughly two years from my initial storyboards, through a long period of previsualization (done mainly in downtime at the studio), to the final six months when a team of three people were assigned on a full time basis.

CGN: What sort of challenges did you face when making the short film?

From a technical point of view, I don't think this film pushed any of the crew too hard - but then that was never the point. The greatest challenge I found was not diverging too far from my original idea. The crucial thing seems to be finding a balance between being open to criticism and suggestions while never being totally overwhelmed by other's opinions.

CGN: Who did the music? Tell us about how it was composed for the short.

There are four pieces of pre-recorded music used in the film, three of which were very generously given to us for free. The fourth, a classical piece, we had to pay for. The piece that is the main theme throughout the film is by an Austrian outfit called Die Knodel. I heard it a few years back and thought it was the most melancholic and beautiful piece of music. For me it conjured up pictures of down-at-heel circuses and broken hearts, and was in effect the inspiration for the film.

CGN: If you could have done anything differently, what would it have been?

To be honest all the things I would change wouldn't necessarily make the film any better. There's some technical hiccups here and there, and the odd piece of animation that could perhaps have been better, but these are things I can live with and I don't feel detract too much from the finished film.

Related Links
Studio AKA
‘Jo Jo in the Stars’ mini-site