Pine Creek Films' Curt Anderson's ANIMATION Determination JOURNEY
Left, Pine Creek Films founder, Curt Anderson on location of 'Who We Are' movie shoot. Above, renders from Anderson's anti-bullying project 'Why Me?' currently in production.
▶ INTERVIEW BY KRISTEN COLLIER
Filmmaker and self-taught animator Curt Anderson, founder of Pine Creek Films, is a case study in determination, grit, and above all, patient perseverance, no matter how the tech bites you in the rear. Like the Energizer bunny, Anderson’s taken a licking and keeps on ticking. CM asked this Byron Center, MI, Christian creative about his company and how he got started in the industry, and also his current projects. And especially how he’s learning that nasty Blender (open source animation software that’s a free download).
CM: Curt, can you tell our readers a bit about your faith and Pine Creek Films?
CA: I am a Christian, non-denominational. Mind you that Pine Creek Films is not a Christian based organization, but we instill Christian values in all of our productions. We don’t do anything that is related to sexual content, extreme violence, nor do we use foul language in any of our productions. Our main focus is to deliver entertainment that is both motivational, entertaining, that caters to both Christians and non-Christians alike. My personal goal is to use my talent to re-establish family unity, and values, through entertainment, by using suggestive reasoning techniques.
CM: How did you get your start?
CA: I started in the film and entertainment industry when I was 10 years old, when I wrote my first screenplay, The Twins. It was based on a role-playing game that my best friend and I started. We used to go out in the field behind our school and pretend to be in a movie, and we both learned about role-playing, character development, and ad lib, using just our child imagination. I then decided to take what we played and began writing.
The Twins evolved over the years, and by the time I was in my early 20’s I learned the basics of screenplay writing, and rewrote the scripts I wrote when I was still in school. I then sent them off to copyright, and The Twins series is now in our archives waiting to be produced.
As I became older, I dropped out of film and entertainment and focused on business management. I got my first break in 1998, when I became a shift manager at the Arby’s store in Grandville, where I spent 15 years.
In 2005, I decided to go back to school, and earned my Associates Degree in Computer Networking and Programming. I also received my Bachelor’s in Technical Projects Management. It was during my last year at ITT when I rediscovered the film industry.
I was working on a new script called 1972Gabby (Later renamed Who We Are), and was thinking about my final project. I was sitting in the computer lab working on a project, when I noticed one of the multimedia students working with his instructor on an animation project. As fate would have it, I was thinking about what I was going to do for my final project, when I overheard the instructor tell his student to give him a camera angle on that.
It was like a lightbulb switched on, so I went back home and pulled an old dusty book off the shelf called the Film Production Handbook. I laid it side by side with my technical project management guide, and saw a similarity between them. Pine Creek Films was born….
From the beginning, I started looking at ways I could streamline the film production process. I decided the best way was to create a series of project plans. Each script would then be evaluated based on the script structure and content [to] determine which of the predetermined project plans would be used. This prompted the creation of our Film Series methodology.
Currently we have Five Film Series: The Gateway, Frontier, Phoenix, Excalibur, and the Hornet. The Gateway was designed to be a collection of animated stories that took place in the fictional town of Hickory Ridge. The Frontier was designed to be a collection of short films that did not have a continuous story plot. The Phoenix, like the Frontier, is a series of short films that are continuous that could be combined to form one feature length film. The Excalibur is designed for high risk, high budget scripts, and the Hornet is our vlogs, and webcasts.
Each film series has a certain set of guidelines, methods, and procedures that need to be performed in order to produce the film from script to distribution. This is why we are able to complete each traditional film on time, and under budget.
In 2009, I decided to produce 1972Gabby as our first animated project for the Gateway film series. I was able to get some actors to do the voiceover work, and found a couple of people to do the animation work. However, even though we got the voiceover work complete, the animators all dropped out, and by 2011 the animation project was scrubbed.
It looked, at the time, Pine Creek Films was dead in the water, but through sheer will I went ahead and converted to traditional filming, and Dreamscape went into immediate production to salvage our crumbling reputation. The first version of Dreamscape was completed in 2011, and was shown at Celebration Cinema Rivertown. Establishing us as fully operational film studio.
Since then, four additional films were released on YouTube: A Gift from Heaven, Mrs. Heartthorn, Who We Are, and Conery. Do to the lack of technology when we originally produced Dreamscape, it was decided to redo the project in 2015 with better sound quality and visual effects. We hoped that the project would be even more successful than the first one, however Celebration Cinema backed out of the deal after the project was completed, due to a change in policy, and liability concerns.
After Dreamscape was released on YouTube, I went to archive the footage. But a computer crash destroyed half the footage, and destroyed all of the mpg2 files needed to upload the series to YouTube. The back-up copies also failed, leaving the raw footage for episodes 1-6, and the appendix scenes.
Just when things couldn’t get any worse, YouTube suddenly suspended our account due to a false copyright claim, and all the uploads for Dreamscape were lost. I had to restart the channel from scratch and re-upload our other films, but sadly there was nothing I could do about the new version of Dreamscape.
I found the test DVD for Dreamscape some time later, but without the titles and credits I can’t release the film a second time. I could re-release the older version, but with the sound and video quality being so poor, I think it could hurt our reputation if I took the chance.
All of our videos are on the Pine Creek Films YouTube channel.
Between 2016 and 2018, Pine Creek Films went through a massive reconstruction period to look at options on how we could improve the concept as a whole. It was during this reconstruction I revisited all of our current operations, and figured out what was working for us, and what wasn’t. The first issue, obviously, was to completely overhaul our back-up methods, so we can prevent what happened with Dreamscape from ever happening again. We also overhauled our pre-production phase so we could better manage our productions, and started creating special film production software, so we can better manage our projects, and make changes in real time.
Pine Creek Films’ mission has always been to give fresh talent the opportunity to break into the film and entertainment industry, by participating, promoting, inspiring, and motivating talent in completing a film project. Although we do very well achieving this part of the mission, generating revenue has always been a struggle. It’s one thing to be able to give people an opportunity, it’s another thing to make sure they get something out of it. IMDb credit is nice, having something to put on the resume is nice, but at what point does the hard work and dedication pay off? I knew it was time to seriously look into ways we can generate revenue, so we could eventually pay our members for their hard work.
CM: How did you start working with Blender, the open source animation software?
CA: Blender came into the picture [two years ago] when I decided we needed a method for storyboarding. I felt a storyboard would help our chances to get distribution for our films that would actually generate an income for us. I started learning Blender and MakeHuman in December of 2017, and as I was learning the methods in modeling and animation, I began to see the potential of bringing animation back to Pine Creek Films.
I started out learning how to use the program’s interface, then went to learning about characters, and MakeHuman, which is another open source software program that allows you to quickly make character models, and import them into Blender completely rigged. I then started playing with architecture, and landscaping. Integrating the characters in those scenes...and just went on from there.
Currently, I was able to find a lip sync plugin. This would allow Blender to take audio files and connect them to an animation pose library, so the character’s lips would move with the sound. I am currently working on developing my own custom rigs, working with making clothes for the characters, as well as mesh and particle hair, and getting them all to work together to give the animation a more realistic feel. I am struggling with texturing, and compositing right now, however I am sure with more practice I’ll get it figured out.
I have come a long way in just the past year alone, with learning the basics of animation, and I feel confident that I will be able to do a full animated feature in the coming years. I am already analyzing what methods I have learned, and trying new methods to improve the look and feel.
CM: What tips do you have for others learning animation?
CA: Thanks to the YouTube community anyone can learn the methods I learned. Take the time to watch each tutorial from beginning to end before attempting to follow along. Pay attention, because the people who make these tutorials make mistakes, then correct them without telling you what they did to fix them. It’s best not to make those mistakes in the first place, so watch it a couple of times until you got the method. Then open Blender and get to work on practicing.
CM: What beginner mistake did you first make?
CA: The big mistake I made when I first explored animation was not realizing how much time and work is involved in making an animated film. It’s not like drawing pictures and running it through an animation simulation, and walaa - you got a full length feature.
It’s learning to work in three dimensions, it’s understanding motion and how it works, it’s striving for as much realism that technology allows for, it’s problem-solving, and the most important factor: time. With my current technology, I am only able to render four frames per hour. If I have a movie that is 10,000 frames long it would take close to 104 days just to render it. Now imagine a full length feature, running at 30 frames a second, with a run-time of one and a half hours. That is 162,000 frames, which would take about 1,687 days, or 5 years, to render.
CM: Why so long?
CA: Obviously that is because I don’t have a gaming computer at this time, so I don’t have enough CPU to handle such a task. To overcome this obstacle I am looking into building a render farm that will cut the render time dramatically. A render farm is a collection of computers that are networked together, and work off one single file. So if you have a gaming computer capable of rendering 30 frames per hour, and you have 10 of the same type computer, that is 300 frames per hour. 162,000 frames at that rate would take 22 days to render.
CM: That’s a ton of work. Is it worth it for self-taught animators to pursue this?
CA: As you can see, animation is both very labor intensive in terms of manpower, and technology. However, the rewards look promising.
CM: Such as?
CA: First off, you no longer need an army of crew members to produce a film. You eliminate the hassle associated with shooting on location or building sets, or tailoring wardrobe. You also eliminate a lot of the legal requirements, and you open the door to generate more revenue, through product placement that can be used to offset a majority of the labor cost involved with the animation process.
CM: What can you tell us about product placement?
CA: Some ways include, but are not limited to, selling graphical models to clients that are being used in the film. Such as soda cans, buildings, perfume bottles, condiments, packaging etc…. It’s also a great platform for small business, to simulate a building layout before they spend time and money to build a new location or plant.
CM: Any specific ideas on product placement you can share?
CA: I don’t want to give away too many of our trade secrets on how we are going about generating revenue during this process, but I will say the preliminary numbers do look very promising, and there is a demand for this type of service. However, we still have a long way to go.
CM: What are some upcoming goals you’re pursuing?
CA: My goals for this year is to develop the methods needed to quickly produce an animated production. I am currently learning cycles, particles, and rigging. I will also explore how I can use a gaming engine to help streamline the animation process. A majority of the work is going to be done during the modeling stage, and I want to streamline the animation phase so it’s not so tedious. If all goes as planned, the method will work like this:
Phase One: Concept Design (Where the models are created and rigged where necessary.)
Phase Two: Assembly (Where the models developed during the concept design are put together to form one scene of the script.)
Phase Three: Animation
Phase Four: First Render (This is where the animation is rendered and tested with no audio.)
Phase Five: Second Render (If there is a problem with the first render, those problems are addressed here, and a second render is performed.) These steps are repeated until the visuals meet all specifications.
Phase Six: ADR (Voiceover) Once the visuals are complete, the actors are brought in to do the voiceover work.
Phase Seven: Final Render. After the voiceover has been integrated into the animation, a final render is performed. This is the final step before post-production.
CM: Why do you do your voiceover work so late in the animation process?
CA: Some people would argue that doing the voiceover in the early stages would be more ideal; however, from lessons learned, actors don’t want to wait two to four years before they get their IMDb credits.
CM: How does that impact production?
CA: I learned it’s better for the actors to get all the technical aspects of the project done first, before committing more labor to the project. If something goes wrong during the animation process, and the project is scrubbed, you minimize the impact to the production company.
CM: Why?
CA: Your animation team is your permanent staff, so if one project is scrubbed they simply move on to the next project. Whereas when you have actors that are temporary, they want insurance that it is worth their time to participate. For some actors, it’s more than just money, it’s credibility, and recognition that makes it all worth it. When looking at the situation from this standpoint, it is clear that doing the voiceover near the end is more feasible. Besides, it’s also helpful to the actors to see the animation, so they can better visualize the scene, and perform accordingly.
CM: How is CGI technology impacting Pine Creek Films and other indie studios?
CA: It’s new territory that our little production company is exploring, but I feel strongly that more film companies are looking further into CGI technology, and as more people begin using platforms like Blender, animation is destined to make a comeback. We are already seeing the use of virtual sets in everyday filming. For example, your local news stations may be using a series of green screens, instead of building elaborate sets. Green screens are being used for standard photography, as well. Many documentaries are using CGI to recreate the past. The possibilities are endless.
CM: What are share about your current animation projects?
CA: Our latest project Why Me, which tackles the issue of bullying, a topic I am very passionate about. Set in the industrial area of Hickory Ridge, a 10 year old girl comes under attack, following a fight with an older girl a year ago. Now harassed by the entire school, Kaylee finds herself in one conflict after another. After several incidents, the school principal determines she is the one causing trouble, and reports her behavior to her dad. Giving the other students a free pass to teach her a lesson. Surrounded on all sides, she finds herself having to deal with the situation on her own.
CM: What can you tell us about creating your character, Kaylee? And the scenery?
CA: Kaylee was the first model I created using MakeHuman. A little bit of a head’s up, the models in MakeHuman are not clothed by default and are very anatomically correct. Mill Elementary was my first attempt at modeling one of the schools in Hickory Ridge. Pinewood Elementary was my second model of one of the schools in Hickory Ridge. This school was destroyed by a boiler explosion. This render was my first attempt at special effects.
CM: Thank you for sharing with our readers.
Filmmaker and self-taught animator Curt Anderson, founder of Pine Creek Films, is a case study in determination, grit, and above all, patient perseverance, no matter how the tech bites you in the rear. Like the Energizer bunny, Anderson’s taken a licking and keeps on ticking. CM asked this Byron Center, MI, Christian creative about his company and how he got started in the industry, and also his current projects. And especially how he’s learning that nasty Blender (open source animation software that’s a free download).
CM: Curt, can you tell our readers a bit about your faith and Pine Creek Films?
CA: I am a Christian, non-denominational. Mind you that Pine Creek Films is not a Christian based organization, but we instill Christian values in all of our productions. We don’t do anything that is related to sexual content, extreme violence, nor do we use foul language in any of our productions. Our main focus is to deliver entertainment that is both motivational, entertaining, that caters to both Christians and non-Christians alike. My personal goal is to use my talent to re-establish family unity, and values, through entertainment, by using suggestive reasoning techniques.
CM: How did you get your start?
CA: I started in the film and entertainment industry when I was 10 years old, when I wrote my first screenplay, The Twins. It was based on a role-playing game that my best friend and I started. We used to go out in the field behind our school and pretend to be in a movie, and we both learned about role-playing, character development, and ad lib, using just our child imagination. I then decided to take what we played and began writing.
The Twins evolved over the years, and by the time I was in my early 20’s I learned the basics of screenplay writing, and rewrote the scripts I wrote when I was still in school. I then sent them off to copyright, and The Twins series is now in our archives waiting to be produced.
As I became older, I dropped out of film and entertainment and focused on business management. I got my first break in 1998, when I became a shift manager at the Arby’s store in Grandville, where I spent 15 years.
In 2005, I decided to go back to school, and earned my Associates Degree in Computer Networking and Programming. I also received my Bachelor’s in Technical Projects Management. It was during my last year at ITT when I rediscovered the film industry.
I was working on a new script called 1972Gabby (Later renamed Who We Are), and was thinking about my final project. I was sitting in the computer lab working on a project, when I noticed one of the multimedia students working with his instructor on an animation project. As fate would have it, I was thinking about what I was going to do for my final project, when I overheard the instructor tell his student to give him a camera angle on that.
It was like a lightbulb switched on, so I went back home and pulled an old dusty book off the shelf called the Film Production Handbook. I laid it side by side with my technical project management guide, and saw a similarity between them. Pine Creek Films was born….
From the beginning, I started looking at ways I could streamline the film production process. I decided the best way was to create a series of project plans. Each script would then be evaluated based on the script structure and content [to] determine which of the predetermined project plans would be used. This prompted the creation of our Film Series methodology.
Currently we have Five Film Series: The Gateway, Frontier, Phoenix, Excalibur, and the Hornet. The Gateway was designed to be a collection of animated stories that took place in the fictional town of Hickory Ridge. The Frontier was designed to be a collection of short films that did not have a continuous story plot. The Phoenix, like the Frontier, is a series of short films that are continuous that could be combined to form one feature length film. The Excalibur is designed for high risk, high budget scripts, and the Hornet is our vlogs, and webcasts.
Each film series has a certain set of guidelines, methods, and procedures that need to be performed in order to produce the film from script to distribution. This is why we are able to complete each traditional film on time, and under budget.
In 2009, I decided to produce 1972Gabby as our first animated project for the Gateway film series. I was able to get some actors to do the voiceover work, and found a couple of people to do the animation work. However, even though we got the voiceover work complete, the animators all dropped out, and by 2011 the animation project was scrubbed.
It looked, at the time, Pine Creek Films was dead in the water, but through sheer will I went ahead and converted to traditional filming, and Dreamscape went into immediate production to salvage our crumbling reputation. The first version of Dreamscape was completed in 2011, and was shown at Celebration Cinema Rivertown. Establishing us as fully operational film studio.
Since then, four additional films were released on YouTube: A Gift from Heaven, Mrs. Heartthorn, Who We Are, and Conery. Do to the lack of technology when we originally produced Dreamscape, it was decided to redo the project in 2015 with better sound quality and visual effects. We hoped that the project would be even more successful than the first one, however Celebration Cinema backed out of the deal after the project was completed, due to a change in policy, and liability concerns.
After Dreamscape was released on YouTube, I went to archive the footage. But a computer crash destroyed half the footage, and destroyed all of the mpg2 files needed to upload the series to YouTube. The back-up copies also failed, leaving the raw footage for episodes 1-6, and the appendix scenes.
Just when things couldn’t get any worse, YouTube suddenly suspended our account due to a false copyright claim, and all the uploads for Dreamscape were lost. I had to restart the channel from scratch and re-upload our other films, but sadly there was nothing I could do about the new version of Dreamscape.
I found the test DVD for Dreamscape some time later, but without the titles and credits I can’t release the film a second time. I could re-release the older version, but with the sound and video quality being so poor, I think it could hurt our reputation if I took the chance.
All of our videos are on the Pine Creek Films YouTube channel.
Between 2016 and 2018, Pine Creek Films went through a massive reconstruction period to look at options on how we could improve the concept as a whole. It was during this reconstruction I revisited all of our current operations, and figured out what was working for us, and what wasn’t. The first issue, obviously, was to completely overhaul our back-up methods, so we can prevent what happened with Dreamscape from ever happening again. We also overhauled our pre-production phase so we could better manage our productions, and started creating special film production software, so we can better manage our projects, and make changes in real time.
Pine Creek Films’ mission has always been to give fresh talent the opportunity to break into the film and entertainment industry, by participating, promoting, inspiring, and motivating talent in completing a film project. Although we do very well achieving this part of the mission, generating revenue has always been a struggle. It’s one thing to be able to give people an opportunity, it’s another thing to make sure they get something out of it. IMDb credit is nice, having something to put on the resume is nice, but at what point does the hard work and dedication pay off? I knew it was time to seriously look into ways we can generate revenue, so we could eventually pay our members for their hard work.
CM: How did you start working with Blender, the open source animation software?
CA: Blender came into the picture [two years ago] when I decided we needed a method for storyboarding. I felt a storyboard would help our chances to get distribution for our films that would actually generate an income for us. I started learning Blender and MakeHuman in December of 2017, and as I was learning the methods in modeling and animation, I began to see the potential of bringing animation back to Pine Creek Films.
I started out learning how to use the program’s interface, then went to learning about characters, and MakeHuman, which is another open source software program that allows you to quickly make character models, and import them into Blender completely rigged. I then started playing with architecture, and landscaping. Integrating the characters in those scenes...and just went on from there.
Currently, I was able to find a lip sync plugin. This would allow Blender to take audio files and connect them to an animation pose library, so the character’s lips would move with the sound. I am currently working on developing my own custom rigs, working with making clothes for the characters, as well as mesh and particle hair, and getting them all to work together to give the animation a more realistic feel. I am struggling with texturing, and compositing right now, however I am sure with more practice I’ll get it figured out.
I have come a long way in just the past year alone, with learning the basics of animation, and I feel confident that I will be able to do a full animated feature in the coming years. I am already analyzing what methods I have learned, and trying new methods to improve the look and feel.
CM: What tips do you have for others learning animation?
CA: Thanks to the YouTube community anyone can learn the methods I learned. Take the time to watch each tutorial from beginning to end before attempting to follow along. Pay attention, because the people who make these tutorials make mistakes, then correct them without telling you what they did to fix them. It’s best not to make those mistakes in the first place, so watch it a couple of times until you got the method. Then open Blender and get to work on practicing.
CM: What beginner mistake did you first make?
CA: The big mistake I made when I first explored animation was not realizing how much time and work is involved in making an animated film. It’s not like drawing pictures and running it through an animation simulation, and walaa - you got a full length feature.
It’s learning to work in three dimensions, it’s understanding motion and how it works, it’s striving for as much realism that technology allows for, it’s problem-solving, and the most important factor: time. With my current technology, I am only able to render four frames per hour. If I have a movie that is 10,000 frames long it would take close to 104 days just to render it. Now imagine a full length feature, running at 30 frames a second, with a run-time of one and a half hours. That is 162,000 frames, which would take about 1,687 days, or 5 years, to render.
CM: Why so long?
CA: Obviously that is because I don’t have a gaming computer at this time, so I don’t have enough CPU to handle such a task. To overcome this obstacle I am looking into building a render farm that will cut the render time dramatically. A render farm is a collection of computers that are networked together, and work off one single file. So if you have a gaming computer capable of rendering 30 frames per hour, and you have 10 of the same type computer, that is 300 frames per hour. 162,000 frames at that rate would take 22 days to render.
CM: That’s a ton of work. Is it worth it for self-taught animators to pursue this?
CA: As you can see, animation is both very labor intensive in terms of manpower, and technology. However, the rewards look promising.
CM: Such as?
CA: First off, you no longer need an army of crew members to produce a film. You eliminate the hassle associated with shooting on location or building sets, or tailoring wardrobe. You also eliminate a lot of the legal requirements, and you open the door to generate more revenue, through product placement that can be used to offset a majority of the labor cost involved with the animation process.
CM: What can you tell us about product placement?
CA: Some ways include, but are not limited to, selling graphical models to clients that are being used in the film. Such as soda cans, buildings, perfume bottles, condiments, packaging etc…. It’s also a great platform for small business, to simulate a building layout before they spend time and money to build a new location or plant.
CM: Any specific ideas on product placement you can share?
CA: I don’t want to give away too many of our trade secrets on how we are going about generating revenue during this process, but I will say the preliminary numbers do look very promising, and there is a demand for this type of service. However, we still have a long way to go.
CM: What are some upcoming goals you’re pursuing?
CA: My goals for this year is to develop the methods needed to quickly produce an animated production. I am currently learning cycles, particles, and rigging. I will also explore how I can use a gaming engine to help streamline the animation process. A majority of the work is going to be done during the modeling stage, and I want to streamline the animation phase so it’s not so tedious. If all goes as planned, the method will work like this:
Phase One: Concept Design (Where the models are created and rigged where necessary.)
Phase Two: Assembly (Where the models developed during the concept design are put together to form one scene of the script.)
Phase Three: Animation
Phase Four: First Render (This is where the animation is rendered and tested with no audio.)
Phase Five: Second Render (If there is a problem with the first render, those problems are addressed here, and a second render is performed.) These steps are repeated until the visuals meet all specifications.
Phase Six: ADR (Voiceover) Once the visuals are complete, the actors are brought in to do the voiceover work.
Phase Seven: Final Render. After the voiceover has been integrated into the animation, a final render is performed. This is the final step before post-production.
CM: Why do you do your voiceover work so late in the animation process?
CA: Some people would argue that doing the voiceover in the early stages would be more ideal; however, from lessons learned, actors don’t want to wait two to four years before they get their IMDb credits.
CM: How does that impact production?
CA: I learned it’s better for the actors to get all the technical aspects of the project done first, before committing more labor to the project. If something goes wrong during the animation process, and the project is scrubbed, you minimize the impact to the production company.
CM: Why?
CA: Your animation team is your permanent staff, so if one project is scrubbed they simply move on to the next project. Whereas when you have actors that are temporary, they want insurance that it is worth their time to participate. For some actors, it’s more than just money, it’s credibility, and recognition that makes it all worth it. When looking at the situation from this standpoint, it is clear that doing the voiceover near the end is more feasible. Besides, it’s also helpful to the actors to see the animation, so they can better visualize the scene, and perform accordingly.
CM: How is CGI technology impacting Pine Creek Films and other indie studios?
CA: It’s new territory that our little production company is exploring, but I feel strongly that more film companies are looking further into CGI technology, and as more people begin using platforms like Blender, animation is destined to make a comeback. We are already seeing the use of virtual sets in everyday filming. For example, your local news stations may be using a series of green screens, instead of building elaborate sets. Green screens are being used for standard photography, as well. Many documentaries are using CGI to recreate the past. The possibilities are endless.
CM: What are share about your current animation projects?
CA: Our latest project Why Me, which tackles the issue of bullying, a topic I am very passionate about. Set in the industrial area of Hickory Ridge, a 10 year old girl comes under attack, following a fight with an older girl a year ago. Now harassed by the entire school, Kaylee finds herself in one conflict after another. After several incidents, the school principal determines she is the one causing trouble, and reports her behavior to her dad. Giving the other students a free pass to teach her a lesson. Surrounded on all sides, she finds herself having to deal with the situation on her own.
CM: What can you tell us about creating your character, Kaylee? And the scenery?
CA: Kaylee was the first model I created using MakeHuman. A little bit of a head’s up, the models in MakeHuman are not clothed by default and are very anatomically correct. Mill Elementary was my first attempt at modeling one of the schools in Hickory Ridge. Pinewood Elementary was my second model of one of the schools in Hickory Ridge. This school was destroyed by a boiler explosion. This render was my first attempt at special effects.
CM: Thank you for sharing with our readers.
