The Art of Half-Life

Artists on the Animation, Music, Sound and Visual Effects behind Half-Life

The Hand-Drawn Animation of Half-Life

Here is a fun look back at the hand-drawn animation from Half-Life. the Art of Half-Life interviews lead animator, Matt Pugnetti, about the work, research and inspiration that went into the making of the film. Feel free to ask Matt or director Jennifer Phang any questions in the comments of this post and they will answer as many as they can!

What was your favorite sequence to work on?
I was excited to do the 500 ft. Mantas from very early on. Their scale in relation to the surrounding was a really cool visual. The manta sequence was very important and there was just a lot to think about with the other visual effects artists, so working collaboratively was a lot of fun.  

How did you prepare to animate this?
I knew there was going to be an opportunity for some cool effects animation - which at the time was my focus in the field. I had studied animation in Tokyo and integrated their styles for Half-life. I knew that we would have to rely greatly upon compositing techniques for character motion and camera moves. It was important for me to figure out what was needed to be hand-drawn and what could be moved as a layer with the software. 

Did you watch any Mantas to prepare?
Yes, visual reference was extremely important. When you see them in their natural element, they are very graceful and beautiful. I wanted to convey this grace and beauty when they burst from the water and crashed into the rocks. Their tragic death also held an element of beauty for me in the way they fell. 

What was the process in developing the look for the moment where the ink peels away from the family's faces?
Jennifer showed me paintings from Sumi-e artists and that was to be the basis for what we created. I started off using a synthetic Sumi-e brush but also started experimenting with different brush's in Photoshop. Switching to digital helped streamline the process. 

Do you remember why you drew this whale concept image?
The drawing was one of the early ideas for our whale design. If I remember correctly, Jennifer had this idea where the giant jelly would be awakening the deepest and oldest creatures in the sea - so we explored mixing prehistoric designs with today's sea life. Later on, we decided to have the Jelly consuming modern day creatures. 

Do you remember what was the hardest thing to create?

Getting the mantas to rise and fall beautifully and believably was a big challenge. I ended up with 11 different passes. Aside from the drawn animation, figuring out how everything was going to composite together took a lot of collaborative effort with the team. The compositors Jason Pachomski, Ken Walz, Andrew Jewell, Ben Bratt were able to do a lot with what I gave them. I animated the ocean on 3 separate layers and the they were able to do so much with that. I credit them for how the ocean turned out.  Mike Okum, Nora Magyar and Amanda Aug did an incredible job painting all of the frames - that was a tremendous feat. 

 

Music contributor to half-life

My name is Arthur Gu and I contributed a song that was used in the movie.

The song is called Bittersweet Anubis Rex and it is scene music in the BBQ
scene. It's also been prominently used in the trailer.

I wrote the song in 1996. It was inspired from frustration during that
period of my life from a series of failed relationships, career dead-ends,
and a lack of momentum in my artistic aspirations. The first line of the
song 'the sun rises from the west tonight, as our world is turned upside
down' reflects an inversion of my world in reality verses my world in
expectations.

This particular recording of this piece was done in 2002-2003 with my band
Lemon Joy. The line-up in the recording of this piece features me on vocals
and guitars, Carl Quesnel on percussion and harmonies, Lorie Enfinger on
bass and harmonies, and Michael Fratino on drums.

Producer Reuben Lim seemed to recognize something within the tone and
content of the piece that he felt was very appropriate for the film and
asked me to contribute. Thanks Reubs!

Bittersweet Anubis Rex

The sun
it rises from the west tonight
as our world is turned upside down
and there's nothing to be done

and all
your promises were lies
don't say
there's nothing left say

oh don't say,
there's nothing to be done . . .
there's nothing to be done

there's more
to life than what you're looking for
some things are not that tangible
of this, you can't deny

and all
your promises were lies
don't say
there's nothing left say

oh don't say,
there's nothing to be done . . .
there's nothing to be done

and all i've got to say
i've already said to you
and all i've got to give
you've already taken
and I don't think it's right
for you to stand by
and watch me die
and watch me die
and watch me die

oh don't say,
there's nothing to be done . . .
there's nothing to be done

Bay Area Artists bring Half-Life to life

Thanks to the collaboration of countless artists in the San Francisco Bay Area (along with others throughout the country) this "indie film that could" defied odds to achieve the level of visual effects, animation, music and sound design that eventually brought it to it's world premiere at Sundance. 

It was truly a collaborative effort with Catherine Tate of San Francisco's Academy of Art spearheading the visual effects process with a team of extraordinary student artists learning and creating in collaboration with director Jennifer Phang. The students were able to work on high quality film scans (thanks to Jackie Lee, Siggy Ferstl and the good people at Company 3 in Los Angeles) and were able to bring their inventive talents into the mix while learning how to work with a very specific, demanding but also nurturing lead team in Catherine and Jennifer.

Matthew Pugnetti, an amazing Northern Californian illustrator and animator, took on the monumental task of single-handedly creating all of the 2D hand-drawn illustrations that became Saura's Animated Dream Sequence. His artistry brought all of those scenes to life along with the coloring of Michael Okum who was also one of the film's set artists brought in by production designer Aiyana Trotter - both already established in the set design of San Francisco's theatre scene.

Our sound mix was done through Audio SFX with William Storkson as supervising sound editor pulling in an amazing team of his collaborators (Mischa Park-Doob and Tyler Straub) to help bring the audio landscape of the film to life from his offices in Novato and at the Presidio in San Francisco (with a very special thanks to Richard Beggs). Brian Sorbo, a former long-time resident of the East Bay and San Francisco was our on-set recordist and also designed the soundscape of the film in close collaboration with Jennifer.

Last but not least of course - writer/director Jennifer Phang was born in Berkeley and grew up in Walnut Creek and many of the images and moments that you see in the film itself were captured through inspirations from her childhood and adolescence spent roaming the halls and hills of the East Bay.

One of the best things that came out of bringing this feature production to the bay area was the amount of amazing talent we discovered along the way who became such an amazing part of the Half-Life world.

Half-Life Visual Effects and Animation Blog

This is a fresh new blog for the artists involved in Half-Life to post their work samples promote their new works and share what they're experience was like working on the film. Feel free to post any of the working elements, building blocks of photos, sound, music and video clips that you used in the making of this film, add to the comments of other posts here and let us know what you're working on these days.