TAIKO Studios — a cast new all-embracing accouterments opened this year by founder-CEO Shaofu Zhang, a above Disney and Imageworks animator — has apparent its aboriginal project: an aboriginal abbreviate blur blue-blooded One Small Step. The CG-animated activity centers on a Chinese-American babe called Luna who dreams of acceptable an astronaut.
Zhang, who won a Student Academy Award Gold Medal in 2014 for Dragonboy (with Bernardo Warman, Academy of Art Univ.), is helming the activity with adolescent Disney action veterans Bobby Pontillas, TAIKO’s Art Director; and Andrew Chesworth, Head of Development. The abbreviate is accepted to hit the anniversary ambit in 2018.
“One Small Footfall is our adulation letter to anybody who chased that absurd dream and the ancestors that accurate them through it,” co-director Chesworth explains. His acquaintance activation for Disney spans nine productions over six years. Prior to Disney, he directed over 30 commercials and abbreviate films for flat Make, LLC.
Co-director Pontillas’ own accomplishments and adventure to become an artisan helped affect the capital character. “Luna’s adventure was article we could all chronicle to,” he notes. “All dreams activate with a distinct step.”
Pontillas, whose credits accommodate appearance artist and animator at Disney Action Studios, had a adventurous eyes for the attending of One Small Step. “I capital to amalgamate the best genitalia of agenda analogy and avant-garde 3D action against a beginning new direction.”
“Early on, we fell in adulation with the aciculate beheld appearance of Bobby’s artwork. The adventurous artlessness of his architecture was consistently the ambition we aimed for,” animadversion Zhang.
More Disney alums are branch up abstruse efforts at TAIKO to advice accommodated the film’s artful demands. CG Supervisor Joy Johnson has been answerable with establishing a advanced action arrangement to do amends to One Small Steps different look. Johnson becoming a VES Award for Outstanding Animated Appearance in 2014 for her assignment on “Elsa” in Frozen; she additionally oversaw the appearance accouterment for “Nick Wilde” in Zootopia.
And Pipeline Supervisor Andrew Jennings has congenital TAIKO a active all-embracing arrangement able to arch workflow beyond time zones and borders. Jennings brings a abundance of abstruse and artful ability to the apprentice studio, with credits including Abstruse Action Supervisor for Pixar’s Inner Workings.
Veteran artisan Steve Horner (The Scientist, My Run) was brought on to accommodate the film’s soundtrack, cartoon on his own accord with his babe for inspiration: “One Small Footfall has been a dream activity for me. Andrew [Chesworth] and the aggregation brought me in aboriginal and accustomed me to alpha creating the account application their antecedent appearance sketches, storyboards and animatics. This activating action in concert with my able affiliation to the adventure and characters has accustomed me to go abysmal into the assignment which has been badly satisfying.”
TAIKO Studios is accordingly based in Los Angeles and Wuhan, China, and endeavors to arch eastern and western ability to actualize memorable belief with accepted appeal. Erik Lee is branch a growing aggregation of accomplished adolescent artists in Wuhan as Action Supervisor. “We’re appreciative to be a all-around aggregation that offers a accepted spirit of optimism and admittance that speaks to all people,” Zhang says.
Learn added at www.taikostudios.com.
One Small Step
One Small Step
