Untitled was made within six months as a final project for the Vancouver Film School. The goal of the project was to animate a complex robot to move like an animal, and so unite interesting aspects of the mechanical world and the organic world in one figure. The sequences of movement were worked out before actually designing the figure, so that the proportions of the individual parts were able to guarantee that animation went smoothly. Since only minimal travelling shots were planned, the images for the background were made with a digital still camera for reasons of quality. Later the high-resolution of the images made travelling shots during post-production possible.

Technically the most sophisticated shot was the walli´s perforation. The broken area was digitally painted out of the original picture and background added for perspective. Afterwards, the missing stones were rendered in 3-D and the process broken down into smaller pieces. The effect of the wall breaking was produced with the aid of a dynamic simulation model. To complete things, dust and smaller stones were generated with numerous particle systems. Depth-of-field and motion blur effects had then to be added to the composite of the different levels.

Detailed textures and good lighting were decisive for creating the roboti´s realistic appearance. Since the figure was made almost entirely of metal, the natural reflections of the surroundings were an important element. To achieve this effect, additional pictures of the area were shot on location and later assemble into a large 360° map of the surroundings.
Due to the very limited number of shots, a cohesive story was practically impossible. Nevertheless, both the figures and the events in the film were to seem vivid and consistent, which is why an entire story with art directions was written during pre-production. Only a small part was used for the actual film.

All the 3-D elements were done using Maya, including their simulation and rendering. For compositing, the software Combustion was chiefly used.

Christoph Ammann (CH) was born in 1980. He completed a college preparatory school for mathematics and the natural sciences, the Gymnasium Rähmibühl in Zurich, in 2000. Afterwards he worked as a 3-D animator at Frame Eleven in Zurich for a year. In fall 2002, he graduated from the Vancouver Film School after a one-year 3-D animation and visual effects course. Since March 2003, he has been working at Framestore CFC in London as an FX animator for feature films.