Message in a bottle

This is a magical love story in FULL HD resolution.

Winner of the Bucket Awards at the Maryville Film Festival 2011

• Best in Grene - ANIMATION
• Best Lighting Design

Message in a bottle is a magical love story. It is a mix of live action and 3D animation.

Read more about the production:

We shoot the raw footage in august 2010 at the baltic sea in germany. (two days) One daylight shoot, one night shoot and some underwater shoots with a Kodak play>sport camera.

Ok - it was sunny but the water was cold. Here: leading actor Nina and me with the Glidecam.

At work - the bootle shoots - i used a Sigma 30mm F1.4 lens an a ND-Fader.

Some screenshots directly from the final footage:

Startscreen - color graded

Nina Fischer as actor

The man in the bottle

color graded scene where she will find the bottle between the rocks

color grades 3d animated scene in the bottle

Postproduction, 3D modeling and animation:

One of the most elaborate work was the selection and grading - i shoot more than 300 individual scenes with my Canon 7D. Some with a monopod and some with a Glidecam steady- system.

For the 3D animated scenes i used a special lib-sync software from DAZ3D.

More than than 3.800 frames 3D animation - rendered on an iMac i7 - more than 10.000 minutes render-time. I had model the raft the 3D man comes from DAZ3D. The main work was the animation sail, flag, lamp, lights, waves, cameras and so on...

Equipment:

• Canon 7D
• Kodak play>sport
• Sigma 30mm F1.4 lens
• Tokina 11-16mm F2.8 lens
• ND-Filter
• Cullman Magnesit 550 monopod
• DIY IGUS-camera-clider Tutorial -> here
• Manfrotto 055XPROB tripod
• Glidecam HD-2000 Steady-System
• Manfrotto 701HDV video-head
• Zacuto Z-Finder 3 Pro

Production-Time:

• 10 hours - scripting, storyboard...
• 12 hours - at the Set
• 10 hours to find the right soundtrack
• 38 hours postproduction
• 52 hours 3D modeling and animation
• 170 hours rendering

Thanks: