It may look like it was hand painted by a mischievous Van Gogh in grade school but this new Motionpoem, by Method Studios for “Monsters” by Dorothea Lasky, hides a complex workflow beneath its lighthearted surface.

Method Studios Director Ivan Girard: “We wanted every frame to appear as if it was an illustration. The animation style is very organic and the color composes the scenes in an otherwise flat image devoid of depth of field.

“We took a multi-tiered approach and basically turned traditional 3D animation on its head.”

“After creating the initial 3D animation pass, artists projected renders onto that geometry and a proprietary stroke system scattered points to define stroke length, flow direction, and lifespan, allowing the colors of the strokes to evolve over time, and the strokes to grow wider or narrower as the camera moved closer or further away.

“The system allowed artists to customize each shot and art direct how the images moved, ensuring that they appeared to be drawn by the same individual and could withstand complex camera moves.

“For the final render, every other frame was dropped, providing the stop-motion-like feel and flickering of 2D animation to the final piece.”

Client: Motion Poems
Executive Producers: Todd Boss, Egg Creative, Lisa Effuses
Author: Dorothea Lasky, from Awe

VFX: Method Studios
Executive Producer: Angela Lupo
Producer: Emily Schaeberle, Adrienne Mitchell, Heather Saunders
Creative Director: Jon Noorlander
Director: Ivan Girard
CG Supervisor: Ivan Guerrero
Coordinator: Elias Bermudez
CG Lead: Sari Rodrig
Animators: Matt Hackett, Will Robinson, Sean Curran, Carlos Sandoval, Paul Wei, Sam Crees
Rigging: Ohad Bracha, Frank Naranjo
Modelers: Brian Di Noto, Orges Kokshari, Piotr Glabinski, Ohad Bracha
Lighters: Claire Yawen Chang, Hubert Wozniak, Kevin Lu, Michael Marsek, Eric Xu
FX Lead: Tomas Slack
FX Artists: Zack Lewis, Jeongyeon Son, Vraja Parra
Compositing Lead: Robert Nick Dauphinais
Compositing: Dave Chen, Urosh Otashevich