Funding Success for Foam and Stina & the Wolf
Posted on 17. Dec, 2012 by admin in Architecture, Art Design and Media, Creative and Cultural Industries, Creative Arts Film and Media, Creative Technologies
Foam Digital and Stina & the Wolf have been successful in their bid to the HEIF Investment Fund for £53,000. Congratulations to Alex Counsell and Paul Charisse in Creative Technologies. We thought you may like to hear more about this amazing animation project.
Foam Digital is a visual effects facility that operates out the Faculty of Creative and Cultural Industries in the University of Portsmouth. It works to provide industry standard animation and visual effects for student and other educational and non-profit based film projects. As well as providing quality visual effects, it aims to deliver a rich learning experience for the students involved, giving them a realistic insight into visual effect production and relevant industry skills.
Stina & the Wolf is a computer animated feature film which uses performance captured live actors, (similar to the process used in AVATAR) and a mix of 2d and 3d animation. The production presently involves students and lecturers from the University of Portsmouth and pupils from the Gregg School, as well as external film industry partners. The project is set to run over the next few years, completing in Summer 2015.
The Story of Stina & the Wolf is set in a world of impossibly high mountains that tower above a sea of cloud covered forests, where a young girl tries to balance her life as an aspiring artist with the reality of a living in a brutal army town. With her surreally disabled uncle and unforgiving aunt making her life increasingly difficult, she seeks distraction with an aspiring soldier who may or may not be just what she wants. As she starts to get comfortable, a troupe of feral gypsies come to the town, led by a mysterious pipe smoking war veteran who offers glimpses of an exotic world beyond her understanding. The ensuing festivities bring a contest that brings the threat of death to the boy she loves. As the night falls, and the moon rises, her world unravels and she is drawn into a story she cannot resist.
Alex Counsell told us “We hope that this will set precedence for other institutions to embrace the challenges that the industry faces and incorporate them into the curriculum. This will help to provide students with that all-important headstart that they need in a very competitive job market.”
A fantastic 9 page article was published recently in 3D Artist (issue 48) all about Foam and Stina & the Wolf. You can see the story if you subscribe to the online version of the magazine or buy a digital edition here.
Alex told us “The 3D Artist article came about as a result of a visit to SIGGRAPH 2012 to promote our first test shot for the film project. This was in conjunction with one of our major sponsors, Faceware Technologies who launched a new educational programme on the back of our initial request for sponsorship. They launched this at SIGGRAPH and issued a press release to numerous magazines and websites, using our imagery as the launch graphics.”
Faceware Technologies, through their Education Outreach Program, offer students unlimited processing completely free for educational purposes . They are a leading provider of 3D facial animation software and hardware for the video game, film, television and commercial industries.
You can see a clip on Vimeo here.
We will keep you up to date as this exciting project develops. In the meantime keep an eye on:
