CGSociety

The story of "Cane-Toad" follows the speculations of our main character Dazza. His mate Baz has gone missing, and he gives us a few insights into what may have happened to the little fellah. Needless to say, some of Baz's possible fates of aren't pleasant.

Andrew and I had been animating in various companies for a few years, and felt ready to create something with complete artistic freedom. We feel that short films are the perfect medium for getting some nice, polished animation out there in an entertaining way. Cane-Toad was a chance for us to practice the film making process and put our animation skills to the test.

Tito A. Belgrave: When did production begin on Cane-Toad?

David Clayton: We began production in November 2001. Andrew and I both made the decision to take six months off work unpaid to complete the film. We felt that complete commitment to the project would be required if we wanted to make it something special. Working nights and weekends was going to be too tough for us.

Before we even touched a computer, we spent a good month coming up with our story. We knew that a solid plot was going to be vital in making the project a success. We made numerous revisions, and used our friends and workmates as a pitching audience. If we could make a story work with scribbled pictures, then pretty 3D graphics would be a bonus.

Andrew Silke: I know it sounds risky, but it really wasn't that difficult to to go unpaid for 6 months. Students don't mind paying for an education but somehow funding ourselves was a bold thing to do. It was like buying a short animation instead of a car. With the skills learned we hope to make our money back in the long term!

Tito A. Belgrave: Right off the bat I was laughing from the very opening of the short, the Aussie humor was subtle, refreshing, and well executed, who was responsible for the dialogue?

Andrew Silke: The script was originally written by Dave and myself. We started talking in these insanely horrible Aussie accents, trying to figure out what the toads might say. We established the key elements of the story, and roughed out the jokes. But it became obvious that we're animators, not writers. A good friend James Cowen helped us out by re-writing some of the dialog with appropriate Aussie slang. It made a tremendous difference.

David Clayton: We enlisted the help of local voice artist Paul Davies to characterize the voice of Dazza. We were in the sound suite for an hour or two, and I was laughing the whole time. It was exciting to hear Daz come to life. We had about 6 awesome takes to cut up and put back together as the finished narrative.

Tito A. Belgrave: The textures are absolutely brilliant, and was one of the shining qualities in the short, can you elaborate on some of the key aspects you used to texture the characters?

David Clayton: The scenery was done in the same way but we used a photo library as a base. Everything was unwrapped and textured with Photoshop. We've never really believed in procedural textures because they're always less organic than the real thing. You can achieve a great deal with a couple of good dirty textures.

Tito A. Belgrave: What obstacles did you come across while making this short?

David Clayton: When we made the choice to output Toads at HD resolution it put our render times through the roof. We probably spent half of our time on story, models, textures and animation; and the other half rendering the thing. The whole time I was thinking to myself "why are we doing this at HD?!" But now that we have the opportunity to transfer Toads to film, it becomes very much worth it.

Tito A. Belgrave:What was the most challenging process in the creation of the short?

Andrew Silke: Overall I'd say the challenge was getting through it all. When things got slow it was tempting to veg out in front of the TV. We had to concentrate on finishing what we'd started. So many people start short films but never see them through. Sometimes I wondered why I was spending 6 months of my life on just 4 minutes of animation - it seemed a little bit insane at times.

David Clayton: I'd agree with Andrew here in saying that the most challenging part of toads was keeping the whole thing rolling. Preserving our motivation was something we were aware of from the very beginning - we didn't want to lose interest half way through. We were lucky to have each other because it's much easier to remain disciplined when you're in a team. We also tried to treat the creation of Toads as a full time job - working from 9 to 5 and then having some time off in the evening and weekends. Although towards the end it became more demanding on our time!

Tito A. Belgrave: Can you give us some insight on your animation process?

David Clayton: The most enjoyable part of creating Toads was the animation process. We'd taken the time to model and articulate our characters well, and this made the animation workflow smooth. We used a bone driven facial system which allowed us to move the face more realistically than traditional morph targets.

Our first step in animating dialog was lip sync. After roughing out the main mouth shapes, we added secondary lag to Dazza's lips and jowls. More character was given by making him talk out of one side of his mouth. We found asymmetry to add a lot to the final result.

The next step was to rough out the key facial expressions. This meant starting to think about the overall feel and emotion running through the scene. Mirrors set up by our computers were invaluable for the face and head motion. Translating subtle head movements into curves on the computer was a challenging step, but eventually we'd nail it, it would just feel right. Short, sharp eye movements were also a big leap forward in bringing our characters to life - it's all in the eyes.

Hand gestures were also an integral part of our character's performance. We found that hands were second only to eyes in the expressiveness of our characters, so we spent a lot of our animation time getting the hands feeling right.

We then added body movements to reinforce the hand and head gestures. We wanted Daz to readjust himself from time to time, lean forward and back, etc. After this, it was just the finishing touches. We created a "breathing" morph target, which was hardly noticeable yet indispensable. Subtle movements of the feet, spine and fingers were added to keep the whole thing moving.

All our friends got involved in the process, by offering feedback at anytime. We found that it doesn't necessarily take someone with a trained eye to make a good suggestion. In fact, sometimes a "non animator" can offer a more valuable opinion.

Tito A. Belgrave: Where do you aspire to be in the future?

David Clayton: I don't really have a grand plan for the future, I'll just go with the flow and see what happens. If I keep myself challenged and continue to learn then I'll be happy. Having complete artistic reign over a project like Toads is definitely something to aim towards though. It's hard work but very rewarding, so I'd love to get another short film going at some point.

Tito A. Belgrave: Can you tell us a little about the short and what inspired it?

Andrew Silke: We didn't have to look far for inspiration, it came from our own backyard. At times we've had hundreds of toads hopping in our own backyards. Cane toads are a big pest here in Australia (Editor's note: especially in Queensland, we hardly see them in South Australia), and they've got an ironic history. They were introduced to eradicate cane beetles but ate everything else instead! When I was young I vividly remember a mate of mine grabbing a golf club and smacking cane toads about. They're very placid creatures - not afraid of anything, but here they were getting bludgeoned about. It's interesting! We asked ourselves "what would life be like from a cane toad's point of view? What would they make of their world?"

We had a heap of ideas but we needed to be smart about what was achievable. The film became the story of a yobbo toad who's mate has gone missing. He theorizes various scenarios that might have befallen his poor buddy.

Tito A. Belgrave: What hardware and software were used in the making of Cane-Toad?

Andrew Silke: All animation and rendering was made in Maya, textures in Photoshop, we edited in Premiere and the final film was composited in Inferno.

Tito A. Belgrave: Great detail was paid attention to in regards of the objects the characters interact with, how long did it take to model your vast array of props?

Andrew Silke: They say the devil is in the details, and they aren't wrong! All the animation was done in 5 weeks - but the props, textures and lighting took about 3 months to complete. One scene took me a month to build, light and texture... and it was only in the film for one shot! We have an early version of Cane-Toad before the details were added, lets just say I'm glad we spent those extra hours slaving away!

David Clayton: There was a lot of effort put into the creation of Dazza's "world". We tried to think of the sets and props as characters in themselves, and wanted to bring them to life as much as possible. Leaves swaying in the breeze, heat haze, ripples in the dog bowl and moving shadows all added to the illusion of a living environment. We even animated the beer inside Dazza's stubby!

A wireframe view of the "Aussie Souvenirs" shop in Cane-Toad, produced in Alias|Wavefront Maya.

Tito A. Belgrave: Do you plan to release Cane-Toad to any animation/film festivals? And what do you hope to gain from the increased exposure?

Andrew Silke: We're keen to show Cane-Toad to as wide an audience as possible. The exposure from festivals is a fantastic way to get our work out there. We're also going to put the film up on the Internet but we have to wait for the festival circuit to finish first. Cane-Toad will be downloadable towards the end of this year from our website at www.cane-toad.com. We're also planning to show a fair bit of behind the scenes stuff so keep an eye out.

Our intention wasn't to make money, we just wanted to create something entertaining and have fun doing it. Toads has become a great promotional tool for us because people are happy to watch short films, whereas show reels can get mundane.

David Clayton: For us the exposure is a chance to get a response from our audience. We want them to feel something - happy, sad, scared... just not bored. Seeing the audience having a laugh at Toads is a kind of nervous excitement.... part of you is up there in front of everybody. I think that every animated character is a reflection of the animator responsible. So yes, somewhere within us lies Dazza!

But like Andrew said, the reason for Toads was to have fun and make something we could be proud of. We'd like to make a name for ourselves out there, and the exposure Toads is getting is helping us do that. So far we've won nearly all the competitions we've entered, so it's been very encouraging.

Tito A. Belgrave:Any upcoming projects you can tell us about?

Andrew Silke: Oh I've got a bunch of ideas that I've been tossing about. Right now I'm concentrating getting back into the swing of working life. I'm happy making some cash again. But now that I've caught the short film bug I think it won't be long before I give another one a bash. : )

David Clayton: Yeah, I'm still waiting for the phone call from Andy that says "Hey Dave...... feel like taking another six months off work?!" But until then, I'm just recovering really. No amazing ideas have hit me just yet, and that's fine with me. Because once I get excited about an idea, I can't stop until it's done!

Tito A. Belgrave: Thank you Andrew and David, this has been very insightful, it was a pleasure.

Andrew Silke: Cheers Tito, it's been an honour.

David Clayton: Thanks for the opportunity Tito.

Discuss this on CGTalk - Digital Visual Effects Professionals >>

From the Director of Community Development, Tito "Lildragon" Belgrave
I hope you enjoyed this feature interview with David Clayton & Andrew Silke on their short film Cane-Toad. And if you're attending the 3D Festival this May in Copenhagen, do keep and eye out for their film in the 3D Film Festival. The guys have also entered Cane-Toad to the 3D Awards. Make sure to stop by their website on February 10th, 2003 for their brand new site launch. Salud!
- Lildragon -

Related Links:
Download the teaser
Official Cane-Toad website

Back to 3D Festival