| 'Tube' 
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[ In Production ] Team Related links |
Tube is Urchin's current work in production. Whereas Elephants Dream proved it possible to make professional 3D animated films in libre software within a studio setting, the Tube project is a new experiment in distributed collaboration. From an undisclosed base in New England, it unites a team of local and international artists using cutting-edge tools for independent filmmaking based in - what else - the hypertubes.
| Very Satisfied 
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[ Pre-production ] Team Related links |
Very Satisfied is a short in pre-production. An early animation test short using one of its set-pieces -- Chicken Chair, a surveilling robotic desk chair -- won Bassam a Suzanne Award for Character Animation.
| The ManCandy FAQ 
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Version 2.48 Team Related links |
ManCandy began as an easily animatable test bed for rigging experiments, and multiple iterations have been released for public use. Bassam demonstrates him in the animated tutorial video + short, The ManCandy FAQ (sold-out 'DVD training 1' of the education series made in support of the Blender Foundation). Following 'Tube' production, ManCandy will be updated with a re-engineered rig and new mesh to correspond with the most recent release of Blender
| Omega 
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[ In Production ] Team Related links |
Omega is an ambitious hybrid stop motion-3D animation short being produced by Eva Franz and Andy Goralczyk at the University of Arts and Design in Karlsruhe, Germany. Bassam contributes as rigging artist.
| Suzanne Animation Festival Interstitials 
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2009 Team Related links |
Introduction and interstitial animations as part of Blender Conference 2009. Eyes and Hands riff on the Blender logo's conjunction of 'see' and 'do', culminating in the Suzanne monkey mascot at the end.
| Oversaturated 
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2009 Team Related links |
For the 48 Hour Film Festival - where that is a production time limit - normal people make live-action film submissions. The delightfully deranged compatriots of Hand Turkey Studios have taken up the challenge 3 years running, resulting in this award winning short among others. Bassam rigged characters and also did a bit of animation.
| Interviews from the Future 
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2008 Team Related links |
Bassam did rigging and animation while consulting for the Rome studio of Spark Digital Entertainment, then converting to a Blender-based libre pipeline. We discovered that despite Blender's reputation as being difficult to learn, with minimal coaching, skilled animators are able to make the switch successfully in a matter of days. Intervista della Futura won the 2008 Suzanne Award for Character Animation.
| Plumiferos 
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2008-2010 Team Related links |
Highly courageous, Plumiferos ('Free Birds') was the first feature length 3D animation made using Blender and all libre software. Bassam was worked in Buenos Aires on the Manos Digitales production, consulting on the libre production pipeline, rigging and animating.
| Big Buck Bunny 
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2008 Team Related links |
Blender's second open movie project, this time: "funny and furry". Bassam pitched in with some animation (once Fateh, who is from the Wild West, explained the use of bow and arrow). We like this wacky image remix by PhotoComiX.
| Elephants Dream 
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2006 Team Related links |
Elephants Dream was the first ‘open movie’. Conceived in part to demonstrate the viability of free/libre tools in a production environment, it saw a dramatic overhaul to the Blender software, and set precedent by offering its source data under a permissive license for learning, remixing and re-use. We linked the project's status as an open movie to its story and design, stressing the theme of communication by juxtaposing mechanisms of articulation with those of exchange/travel: the typewriter becomes a bridge; the camera lens, an elevator. Where Emo is drawn to society and to explore, Proog's autocratic paranoia drives him to subvert the purpose and meaning of such devices until they break down and render him ineffectual. (When he takes Emo to see the 'big picture', the view is barren.) Human structures of organization and communication are based in agreement on fictional ideas-- countries, money, hierarchy (e.g. Ralph is "King" and somehow special and must be obeyed). If our narrative describes conflicting story-systems and the final solipsism of control, we (unlike Proog) invite the audience to take apart our work, and use it to advance its own.