#FREERENDER Jimmy David Kintu
Here is the 3rd winner of the RENDERFARM.RO #FREERENDER program!
During the month of June and September 2020, we proudly supported the young and extremely gifted artist Jimmy David Kintu to render his student short film, Hermit Cliff. David is a 3d animation and film student from APIIT Malaysia and this film was his final year project involving a flyby through an ivy still landscape with a lonely old hermit looking out to sea as the dawn breaks atop his cliff.
Exiled into a snowy island, the grumpy old, Johnathan makes do with his life. He’s visited occasionally but hardly opens up. You can still find him looking out atop his cliff. What could he be hoping for?
Here is the interview David granted us.
RENDERFARM.RO – Hi David and thank you for taking the time for the interview. Who is Jimmy David Kintu?
Jimmy David Kintu – I’m just the average 22-year-old film student from Africa. I love music and art and want to see how I can use my skills for God’s glory.
RFRO – You are an awesome artist. Can you tell us how did you end up pursuing this field?
David – Flattering! I think I’m pretty decent. My mum was the one who pushed me to study film and animation since I didn’t know what to do with myself career-wise. She suspected that I would enjoy it and it turns out I do.
RFRO – What inspired you to create this short film?
David – This was a final year project based on a tiny script I wrote involving an old man, Johnathan, in exile. It was kind of inspired by Pixar’s Up movie, where Earl liked to live in isolation and no amount of friendly outreach could break him. As I wrote the script, the images and concept poured into my mind and I had so many ideas and angles. My supervisors however, wisely cut down my ambitious visions into more practical student workload.
RFRO – Is there a message conveyed with your short film?
David – Since the story side of things was cut down, you can’t really tell much from the video, it functions more like a trailer or proof of concept.
Story involves John and a Lady Wiz. He’s exiled but he’s content with the sentence and so Lady Wiz comes to visit his island from time to time (hence the boat) and convince him to soften his heart. He doesn’t mind the cold. He’s fit and resourceful and makes life work to spite people but he also kind of misses the mainland and I wanted the story to slowly unpack that.
RFRO – What made you choose RENDERFARM.ro for your rendering needs?
David – It’s just the first farm that actually worked for me! The manual management helped since Mihai would inform me on the inevitably numerous complaints the program had with rendering the footage and make flexible adjustments from there.
RFRO – What software and plugins did you use for your project and why?
David – For some shots I used Maya and Arnold because it was required of us to learn those. However, both of those are finicky and complex that they often gave me enough problems to stab and kill my creative process. Other plugins I liked were BOSS (for the ocean) and MASH for scattering object instances (plants, rocks) 3Dcoat was also a strong help for sculpting/unwrapping/topologizing most of the meshes.
RFRO – What is your 3D creation process?
David – Sure! It starts with concepting. A mix of story-boarding, script-writing, drawing. Anything that turns on my drive. I deliberate over it until the vision is clear and then the rest is a wrestle with execution. I did some blocking of the landscape using primitive shaped while hunting for references that looked like my vision and then got to work sculpting all the needed assets. I would throw in a few pre-existing assets from quixel mega scans (see if you can spot them) to help show my supervisors what I had in mind and also to save time. I took a lot of time over the hermit because he was the star in my mind. I practiced anatomy through sketches to make sure I got him right. The face was revised to heck! I would then practice sculpting some generic male anatomy and then work on the real thing.
RFRO – We enjoyed working with you very much! Can you tell us about your experience working with us?
David – Thank you for bearing with me! I really liked the communication because errors could get so technical and reporting on them was super helpful. The timely responses were great, Careful attention to requested specifications and even advise on said specifications for a more efficient output, I greatly appreciated.
RFRO – What is the next step for David Kintu?
David – I really don’t know! As God wills. I’d like to do tiny pet projects to continue improving my skills. I also have a real passion for song writing and I’d like to pursue that as well.
RFRO – Thank you David for reaching out to us and for this interview. We love to help talented artists like yourself and we wish you good luck in your future endeavors!
We look forward to see your future work and also to hear your songs 😊
Check out other cool stuff from David here
#maya #blender #motiongraphics #freerender #givingback