Set sail on the Destiny with Disney
Not To Scale and director Caleb Woods set sail on the all-new Disney Destiny cruise ship.
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Disney’s in-house creative agency, Yellow Shoes, brought on board Director Caleb Woods and the magical crew at Not To Scale to meld together live-action and meticulously crafted animation, to create a world of wonder for the launch of Disney’s new cruise ship, ‘Destiny’.
The 30” film follows a family of four, who after stepping foot on the deck are soon transported into a painterly world where they experience the exciting entertainment that awaits them on board. Woods and Technical Director James Littlemore took great care to reinforce consistency through the two sections of the film, ensuring the vivid colour palette and lighting were uninterrupted by the switch in mediums.
Shooting was divided between the studio using state-of-the-art stage capture and a real, working Disney Cruise ship. Operating in Florida, it needed to happen in rapid time to meet the delivery date, and in response to the irregularity of hurricane season.
Credits
View on- Agency Yellow Shoes Creative Group/Orlando
- Production Company Not To Scale/USA
- Director Caleb Woods
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Credits
View on- Agency Yellow Shoes Creative Group/Orlando
- Production Company Not To Scale/USA
- Director Caleb Woods
Explore full credits, grab hi-res stills and more on shots Vault
Credits
powered by- Agency Yellow Shoes Creative Group/Orlando
- Production Company Not To Scale/USA
- Director Caleb Woods
Since the new Disney Destiny ship is still under construction and isn’t yet at sea, extensive background reference images were shot onboard a Disney vessel with a similar layout, which informed camera placement on a live-action capture stage. The talented production crew then built out a stage, matching the relative heights of a theatre seat or the orientation of tables inside a dining room. Once the stage was set, the cast got to employ the unique art of “acting to be animated” exaggerating gestures, facial expressions and reactions to give the live-action footage distinct characteristics that would register once the hand-painted lines moved across the footage.
With footage in the can, they extrapolated 3D data from it to build the backgrounds to place our characters in, then hand-painted those CGI backgrounds to become the base layer of the “canvas”. After the actors’ footage had been processed, it was treated to the same base paint from the brush of the artists. Then, just like in a fine brush painting, the artists continued to refine and draw over each frame of the sequence, dialling in detail like hair texture or eye light, painstakingly frame by frame.
Animators created the dynamic 2D transitions to take us from scene to scene across the ship, which were filled in by the artists with layers of vivid hand-painted elements, like thick oils swirling together. Lots of compositing married each element together, adding edge lights, shadows, integrating the painted backgrounds to foregrounds.
The final touch was capturing still images of actual canvas textures and real paint brush swipes, which NTS stitched into a sequence and animated across the final paintings to drive home that feeling that you’re looking at a painting in motion.
Caleb Woods, Director added: "In a time when we’re focused on the effortless speed of new tools, I love that we had the opportunity to create something celebrating the care and craft of real artists. It was particularly amazing for our animation crew to work with a brand like Disney and pull inspiration from their rich history of hand-painted animation. The team at Yellow Shoes were incredible partners, supplying endless imagination, faith and trust throughout this process spanning multiple disciplines, dozens of artists and countless hours of creativity"
