Freekstorm VFX Blog

One of the masterpieces of cinema is Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane. The film opens with the famous deathbed scene, which could easily stand alone by itself as a most excellent short film. As he dies, Kane’s final whispered word is “Rosebud.” This single word forms the mystery of the film – “rosebud” is his final and most powerful memory which defines him as a person, the key to unravelling the mystery of his life. “Rosebud is the emblem of security, hope and innocence of childhood, which a man can spend his life seeking to regain.”

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if everyone could have such an epiphany? A single extraordinary moment which forever changes the direction of their life? A recent interesting article in The Independent addressed this very subject and detailed the Rosebud moments of famous directors which ignited their passion for filmmaking and thus changed the course of their lives forever. After reading this, I figured that most great directors experienced such epiphanies, so I asked my own trusty director to identify his very own “rosebud moment” which made him want to go into filmmaking.

“I don’t believe in epiphanies,” he said.

“Why not?”

“Because I’ve never had one.”

“What? Never?”

“Nope. I think they’re a bit too melodramatic, to be honest.”

Well, so much for defining moments. It turns out that my dear director believes in evolution not epiphanies. He believes in a more logical (for that read “Vulcan”) approach where a person’s direction in life changes due to cumulated experiences, rather than because a light-bulb goes on somewhere. He is way too sensible for epiphanies – he is far more likely to change the course of his life in response to an intellectual challenge, rather than a sudden revelation.

He told me that when he was a kid, he spent endless hours watching t.v. animation shorts such as Morph in Take Heart. He was inspired enough to want to make animations like these, but in those days the opportunities simply didn’t exist for teenagers to create things like that, no matter how ambitious they were. So he shelved his ambitions whilst growing up and instead became fascinated with computers. He threw himself into programming in a big way, and this formed the cornerstone of his career path. As technology developed, he began to see the possibilities of reviving his interest in animation, not through stop-motion but instead through designing CG characters and animating them on the computer.

“The latest CG animation technology is still in its infancy,” he says. “A few years ago the average six minute animated short film would take around two years to do. I want to develop technology that will reduce the two year period to something manageable, like three months or so. It is only in the last year that the price of the CG software tools has come down enough to make this timescale possible for the serious amateur. Now the sky’s the limit.”

“But why animation?” I asked.

“The real world exists,” he says. “You just have to put a camera in it and record it. You can then put your character into the real world and see how it interacts. I love mixing reality and fantasy. That’s what telling stories is all about.”

So? Less of a single rosebud moment, and more of a slowly growing shrub?

“I’m not trying to open a door to my past,” he says. “There was no epiphany I’m afraid. I know you think there should be, but frankly, I’m just not that deep a person. All I want to do is to tell stories. Now, thanks to modern CG technology, finally I can.”

Labels: director, filmmaking