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IRIDAS customers Rob Taylor and Mike McCormick are
driven by the passion to tell stories. San Diego’s Pendulum Studios is
about creating the right pipeline to tell each story that comes their
way. And to keep their creative chops sharp, the two founders make their
own short films, most recently an entertaining animation called
Arrest Assured.
This is the story of how Pendulum made that
movie.
What gave you the idea to
make this movie?
Rob: Our mission is to tell engaging stories, and doing a piece like
this – where we’ve got full creative control – really allows us to
spread our wings.
Mike: Along with fostering our own creative goals,
Arrest Assured
was intended to demonstrate our ability to develop a pipeline of this
scope and quality.
What was special about the
pipeline?
Rob: Mike and I have had the privilege of
consulting at animation & digital effects studios around the world: one
lesson we learned is that there is no such thing as a single panacea
pipeline which works for all productions. The project and situation must
determine the pipeline.
We spend a long time at Pendulum in planning and
pre-production. Once we have a clear picture of what a project demands -
and literally mapping it out with flowcharting software - we can make
crucial pipeline decisions, from hardware and software purchases to
hiring and training.
Mike: The funny thing about all this planning is
that we get a lot of the stress over with at the beginning of a project,
rather than at the end. The whole process buys us more time and freedom
in production, not less.
What did you want the
Arrest Assured pipeline to show?
Rob: Well, we designed it so that it would be
possible for just the two of us to get the entire thing done, parallel
to our regular ever-increasing workload.
With this in mind, we feel comfortable showing it
to our clients and telling them ‘if we can pull this off with just a
couple of artists, imagine what we can do with our entire team focused
on your project!’ It’s a fun and eye-catching film and it’s great
proof of our capabilities.
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About Pendulum