About the Film

Synopsis 1

When an energy depleted theme park closes its doors, one battery powered mascot from the park must rise to save them all.

Synopsis 2

When an energy depleted theme park closes its doors, one battery powered mascot from the park must rise to save them all. But while he's on his own search for survival, he uncovers some of his fallen friends and he'll decide whether life's worth living for or if he should sacrifice his last energy to spend one more day with them.

Director Notes

The film started off from a chat discussion with an old Canadian High school friend Josh Flowers who was living in China at the time. A rough idea came up after about a 30 min brainstorm of some themes I wanted to address, primarily with our current energy crisis and asking the question, what if renewable energy doesn't work?

I also wanted to make an experimental film, rather than a film with a clear narrative. However, after the first edit, the crowd had no idea what the film was about and I realized experimental films were not my strength or was the medium appropriate for that genre. So I spent the entire summer rebuilding the film, trying to salvage whatever shots I could. I shopped the film over to a close friend, Tun and his animation studio in Thailand to get other ideas and other mentors in the animation world. I rebuilt the story and after long discussions with other artists, friends and assistants, tightened up the story to finalize with the current film, a third revision.

Subconsciously, I built the story around other themes besides renewable energy. Sacrifice, friendships and loneliness are all sub themes of the film but it is also open to other interpretations. In my circumstance, I realized how much I missed the people that helped shape me and my childhood, one of discovery and innocence.

Specifications

Duration	9:23
Process	3D Animated
Language	English
Start Date	February 2009
Completion Date	January 2012
Funded By	Grants and Research Funding (Southeast Missouri State University)
Software Used	Maya, Photoshop, After Effects, Premiere
Produced In	USA

Credits

Director, Producer, Story	Peter Chanthanakone
Lead Modeler	Chris Northcutt
Modeling Assistant	Kirk Lohmann
Pre viz Assistant	Osby Tomlin
Graphic Design Assistants	Michael Freezeland Casey Williams
Musical Composer, Producer	Rabby Teng
Voice Overs	Newscaster - Dick Withers Jukebox - Osby Tomlin Koala Kay - Aubrey Hampton Chef Charlie - Chris Northcutt Bee/Attendant - Peter Chanthanakone
Special Thanks	Travis Drilingas Joshua Flowers Krista Francis Jeremy Griffin Michal Gurrola Brandon Hatcher GRFC Tun Nicole Wetherholt

Production Facts

# of revisions of the film	3
# of people who watched the first cut in May 2011	110+
# of critics	30+
# of 3D shots	121
# of models	180+
# of textures	1450+
# of graphics (logos, signs, etc)	380+
# of environments	9
# of people who modeled/Textured Jukebox	4
# of shots cut	30+
Rendered using:	3 Computers 2008 Mac Pro (8GB) Intel i7 (8GB) AMD Phenom X6 1075 (12GB)
Avg number of render passes (max, min)	3 (7, 1)
Avg rendering time per frame (max, min)	45 seconds (5:30 seconds, 20 second)
Time to render the film in Maya in 1080HD (1 computer)	220 hours
Time to render the film in After Effects in 1080HD (1 computer)	8.5 hours