“Wishes: Windows & Nests”
Title:
- Wishes: Windows & Nests
Conference:
Description:
“Wishes: Windows & Nests” is a celebration of children’s empathy and a reminder that they have the power change the world, one small action at a time. The premise of the story-engine is that “inside every one of us there’s a box of wishes… But the most powerful ones are those that belong to others”. It’s told from the perspective of the creators as members of a migrant family of filmmakers, and combines 2D tradigital, painterly animation with digital cut-out puppets.
One of the technical challenges was to achieve the director’s ‘painterly style’ (e.g. with textures rather than flat colours as part of the distinctive style) in an efficient way, to prototype a scalable model for potential series production. For this, the team collaborated with Toon Boom representatives to build on rigs they had developed internally during early R&D. These rigs not only included aspects of motion but also node systems for colouring, lighting, shading and effects.
The immersive sound was achieved using microphone arrays for fauna and city recordings, with a frontal MS setup for LCR, and stereo for LsRs. Sound Particles and GRM Space Grain were used to generate immersive soundscapes and the project was mixed in near-field Dolby Atmos, seeking consistency with theatrical 5.1 and binaural headphone playback.
The pipeline involved ‘agile’ iteration loops in which sound sketches were provided to animators, whose work would be influenced by these, and subsequently the sound designer would evolve their work based on the animation output.
This project received funding from Screen Australia, the South Australian Film Corporation and the Adelaide Film Festival, has been recognised with prestigious awards like the Screen Producers Australia Best Short Production and has been selected to 40+ festivals to date. It’s also inspiration for a series in development (selected by Annecy-Mifa Pitches 2024).
