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I recently watched a short C4D film called “Magnetism” and really enjoyed it. It’s a very touching little piece with really solid animation. I wanted to learn more about the project, which was created by Charlie Davies, so I asked him a bunch of questions. I wanted to share a breakdown of the process of this video. Stick around till the end of the post, we will be giving away some great freebies! Before the breakdown take a few minutes to enjoy the movie:
What software did you use?
C4D was used for all of the 3D and After Effects for the compositing.
How long did the project take you to create?
The project took about 5 months to complete. This was mainly weekend and evening work because I work as a freelancer. I worked on it alone, from the original bad sketches, through to compositing and editing. A very rough guess of hours spent would be somewhere in the 100s.
What was your inspiration for the story?
The story was in my head a long time ago. It originally was about foxes gathering acorns, but I changed to robots because I am still learning character animation in C4D and these robots didn’t require faces, rigging or too many moving parts.
Why did you create this project?
This was my first attempt at a story driven animation rather than just an experiment. Like all of my work, the main reason was practice and because I knew I would enjoy it. I’ve always loved films and animation, so trying to create something from scratch was an interesting thought.
Did you create all the models yourself?
All the models were made by me. Plenty of inspiration was taken, as soon as the idea was in my head, from the underside of trains I saw, links on Pinterest and Behance, films like Aliens and Pacific Rim etc.
What was the most challenging part of the project?
The project was bigger and slower than I thought, mainly because of work. But having to model the whole scene until I was bored of it, then texture till I was bored, animate till I was bored, the same with lighting, camera, rendering, and even comping. I found it hard to see it with fresh eyes, and to not take short cuts that I wouldn’t be happy with at the end.
What was the most fun part of the project?
Whenever I animate or create anything I get a buzz when my sketches and ideas start to take shape. When I first got the robot moving and animated a cycle of him dropping the box, that made me smile!
How long have you been working in motion graphics?
I started making music videos 10 years ago. At the time me and a few mates pushed ourselves to learn as we worked and that’s still the way I learn today, although it is much easier now with all the tutorial sites and forums. The whole community is really useful!
I hope you guys enjoyed this little breakdown and I hope this inspires you to create a project of your own. If you do, send me a link! Please give some love to Charlie Davies for his hard work and dedication to growing his craft. You can check him out on Vimeo or his website: facecreatives.com
Charlie is letting me give away a couple of his models for free to you guys! He’s giving away a robot (which is already animated), a conveyor belt and a bunch of boxes! Huge thanks to Charlie.