Where We Learned to Drive

Senior Capstone Project

Software Used

Maya

RenderMan

Nuke

After Effects

Premiere

Photoshop

Substance Painter

Special Thanks

Mentors: Dave Walvoord, Charl Collocott

Instructor/TA: Caleb Kicklighter, Kathryn King

Responsible for concept, layout, animation, lighting, rendering, compositing, sound, color grading, editing

All assets acquired through Quixel and Sketchfab, sound from FreeSound.org

Ry Cooder - No Safety Zone

Overview

This project is a 40-second animated short film for my Senior Capstone Project, focusing on CG cinematography to explore the theme of nostalgia. The film examines the bittersweet feelings we experience when we leave a place we once called home, highlighting how we often romanticize even the negative aspects of our past.

Set in the suburbs and small cities of America, the film aims to evoke nostalgia through areas are often characterized by their sprawling streets filled with strip malls, fast food restaurants, and car centric lifestyles. While not everyone has experienced life in these places, the film seeks to create a sense of nostalgia that resonates with a broad audience through the camera and lighting techniques.

Through careful attention to detail in layout and lighting, the film captures the essence of suburban life and invites viewers to reflect on their own memories, sparking a sense of nostalgia regardless of their background.

Inspiration

The project's vision was shaped by personal memories of moving, particularly as I approached the end of my college journey. As a senior in my final semester of school, the incoming transition to a different life gave me bittersweet feelings about leaving everything behind.

A central theme that intrigued me during the conceptualization of this project was the notion of place. In each place I've lived, there has always been some aspect I didn't quite like or a challenging memory associated with it. For example, living in the suburbs of North Texas I've noticed a lack of vibrant activity and limited accessible locations, often meaning a 10-15 minute drive to reach any destination. This environment lacks the infrastructure for anybody to walk or bike anywhere, reinforcing the dependence on cars for mobility. This observation sparked a deeper exploration into the concept of home and how we tend to idealize or romanticize certain aspects of our past environments.

Nostalgia often arises not just from the positive aspects of a place but also from the challenges and imperfections that were once part of our daily lives. This project became a way for me to not only visually capture these complex emotions but also to reflect on the nature of memory and the passage of time. I drew inspiration from a broad exploration of how dreams and nostalgia are visually portrayed in media, including lighting techniques, color grading methods, and visual effects that create a surreal and nostalgic ambiance. By looking at these aspects, the project aimed to create a visual narrative that resonates with viewers, inviting them to reflect on their own memories and emotions in a subtle and meaningful way.

Project Phases

01.

Pre- Production

02.

Layout & Scene Assembly

03.

Lighting & Compositing

04.

Final Assembly

Phase 01: Pre- Production

The first step was to do research and gather reference of how nostalgia is evoked in audiences and how "nostalgia looks". A large part of this step relied on personal feeling and how images, sounds, and objects made me feel

Image by Marygrace Gladden

Storyboards & Breakdowns

Storyboards helped to plan out the sequences of shots and gave me an idea of how the story would pan out over 40 seconds. I was originally planning on having 8 shots, but due to a longer concept phase than I expected, I decided to cut it.

The next step in the process was looking into live action film and seeing what parts of it that I could not only replicate to create a film look, but use to evoke nostalgia in the audience. I looked at three things when evaluating photos: Film techniques/mistakes, light quality and effects, and framing.

What makes an image feel nostalgic?

Lighting

While neon lights can give a dreamlike feeling, natural lighting tends to produce the biggest sense of nostalgia. The sun is something that every person on Earth experiences, we can feel the temperature and can image how it feels on our skin. Overexposed background also provide an often nostalgic look, as most "home photographers" are not experts, thus leading to incorrect exposures

Objects

Obvious wear and tear showing it has been used, lots of patterns and textures to convey that it is a handmade and antique item, covered in dust for age

Color

Surprisingly found that color is very insignificant when it comes to producing a nostalgic feeling. Both temperature and saturation can vary and still produce the same feeling

Film Look & Lens Effects

Grain can make an image seem more vintage and antique, but doesn't personally evoke a feeling of nostalgia. Adding it can break up the perfectness of the image which is overall a pleasing look to have. Halation, lens flares, and bokeh on the other hand do have a nostalgic effect.

My "mood board" technique I use for each shot. Each shot has:
- A description of what it is and why it is important to the overall short
- Subject reference for framing and composition
- Lighting reference of similar environments and goals I am trying to capture
- Progress renders from base layout to final

Phase 02: Layout

The main goal with the overall layout was to create something believable as a real world environment, with authentic compositions and unique camera angles that still felt tangible within a physically based set.

File Setup

Created scenes using Maya and Renderman. Implemented an ACES color system for a consistent workflow

Asset Collection

Utilized Quixel and Sketchfab for 3D assets, focusing on objects that convey nostalgia and support the overall story

Composition

Focused on using each space to convey a sense of naturalism as lived in environments. Considered the placement of the camera to simulate a realistic viewpoint as if a person was holding the camera

Look Dev and Shading

Set up shader networks in Renderman to achieve realistic textures and materials for assets, with a focus on capturing the worn and aged look of nostalgic objects

Camera Animation

Went for a naturalistic handheld feeling to further convey the sense of somebody filming themselves, adding to the personal element

Other Animation

Animated the tree system in MASH in Maya

A late stage animatics to showcase the camera animation and leaf animation.

One difficult but intriguing thing about this process was having to combine the layout and surfacing stages. While making the layout I would set up the texture networks concurrently. Being that I was not doing any modeling or surfacing, if the textures were not up to a certain standard I would have to scrap it and find a better model with better textures.

For example, the specific shot of driving looking at the telephone wires, my original plan was to have the focus be fast food signs and gas station signs, but unfortunately I was unable to find high quality versions of either online, so I had to shift it to be mainly telephone wires.

Final layouts with base HDRI lighting

Phase 03: Lighting/Comp

The most important part of this project was lighting, as nostalgia is so often brought through by it.

Shot 01

The goal with this shot was to make a warm and glowy home that felt as if it was an early morning packing session before moving away.

Shot 02

This shot was inspired by my childhood memories of looking up at the blowing trees of my neighbourhood and hearing the wind and ambience of the people around me playing. The specific feeling of warm sun on my skin was something I wanted to portray through this shot

Shot 03

Utilizing the trees from the shot before, this shot contrasts that one by showing what possibly may lie beneath it. Growing up in areas with long stretches of sidewalk littered with garbage, finding a way to make this shot appealing was a fun challenge.

Shot 04

The second "negative" shot. One aspect of the suburbs I am not a fan of is the concept of "stroads", unwalkable roads filled with fast food and gas stations. I loved the idea of portraying this at sunset to silhouette and show off the tall and vertical nature of these roads

Shot 05

Nobody likes traffic! One thing that I found from my research was that blurry or out of focus things often felt more nostalgic. For this shot I used disc lights and made them visible to camera, while still using depth of field to make it seem like realistic bokeh.

Shot 06

This shot was made to emphasise the emptiness/waste of space in the suburbs. I wanted to create a shot that had a lot of interest but was still empty. I ended up adding in puddles to add more reflections, and used specific placement of street lights to help move the eye around the frame.

Shot 07

The final aspect of this short was to wrap up the story, showing that the character has moved away and left their old life behind. I utilised the same lighting setup to help with continuity, hopefully making the audience nostalgic for a space they have never stepped foot in.

Tim mcelaney