Diamond Select Toys and Art Asylum are excited to announce a new Minimates box set will be available this Spring! The X-men Box Set will include, Darktide, a full-length mini-movie featuring computer-animated Minimates as you’ve never seen them before!

When Storm goes missing during an undercover mission, it’s up to the X-Men to investigate. But their search gets even more dangerous when Magneto and his Brotherhood of Evil Mutants arrive on the scene! Featuring an original script officially approved by Marvel Comics, Darktide also features the Minimate debut of Archangel, Beast and the Minimates Max Sentinel in all their fully-rendered glory!

That's the story of the mini-movie, but the real story behind this is the collision of the DAVE School's fall 2005 graduating classes final project when it meets the real world. For every class entering the DAVE School their long hours of study and hard work culminates in the often mind numbing feat of joining together as a mini-production company. Their task is to take a story from concept to completed short in just one semester. The payoff? Graduation and one heck of a demo reel. But for this falls graduating class their little taste of a real world production pipeline was very literally a real world production pipeline.

So grab the popcorn and a drink, here's the behind the scenes story of the 'X-Men: Darktide' production as explained by Michael D. Rizzuto, this falls project Technical Director.

I don’t think anyone expected to hear the following phrase at a graduation ceremony, spoken by esteemed instructor, William “Proton” Vaughan: “Last week, I told the students that they reminded me of my dog, Jack, who crapped on the rug…”

William explained that the quote about Jack the dog referred to when the canine would behave very well in most cases, but turn around at inopportune times and “make a mess on the rug”. He believed that we (the graduating class) would perform well during most of the final term’s production, but would fail at a critical moment.

It was a Wednesday in late September of 2005. The night was warm and clear in Orlando, Florida, and eighteen students of the DAVE (Digital Animation & Visual Effects) School, with their friends and family, had gathered at the local cineplex for a graduation ceremony. It was a time for celebration of their achievements, and a time when they would view their final project – an animated short feature – on the big screen at the theater. But just one short week before, it was believed that the X-Men: Darktide animated movie would not be completed by deadline – and many of those students would therefore, not graduate.

As a student of the class of September 2005, and one of the project leads for the final weeks of production, I felt the pressure we were under as much as anyone. But sacrifice is the name of the game, and most students stepped up when the demand was made of them. Some survived on coffee, a couple quit their jobs to make time for the project, and “sleep was for the weak”. We knew that last statement wasn’t true, but I thought it suggested the determination that the students were showing in their effort to make this movie.

Part of the DAVE School’s curriculum includes a 4th term “working environment” project, during which students forego the typical classroom environment and are put to work on a short movie – sometimes in pure animation, sometimes in a live-action/cg-element mix. It’s a bit like an internship, but also includes lectures and advice from industry professionals. There’s no money changing hands, but the students earn their grades, rather than a paycheck.

Most graduates of the school will tell how their 4th-term project was more difficult than anyone else’s, but that is not my goal here. Rather, I will tell of the difficulties that we faced – and more importantly, how they were overcome so that we could not only produce the movie we did, but produce it by deadline.

The term normally lasts for 3 months, give or take a week depending on the time of the year. Of those three months, we lost one week of production so that we could learn the basics of storyboarding from industry professional Mark Simon. We also lost one week as the school took the 4th-term students to SIGGRAPH in Los Angeles. A couple of days were devoted to a lecture on particles and hypervoxels by Deuce Bennett. And finally, we lost a week of time at the end of the project, because the completed movie had to be delivered to Sound-o-Rama for effects and musical score. So, we basically completed the movie in approximately nine weeks.

Part of the unique aspect of this particular project, was that we were working not only with deadlines, but with clients. Art Asylum, creators of the Minimate toys, and Marvel Entertainment, Inc. were involved with the project - and certain aspects had to meet their approval before we could proceed with others. For example, the modeled characters had to meet with Art Asylum’s approval before we could use them in the project, and they had to fit into Marvel’s timeline as well. Our initial storyboards showed the character “Angel” with metallic wings, but that particular version of the character didn’t exist in Marvel’s concept of this story’s timeline, so the wings were changed to a feathered look. Creating the “plastic feathers” fell on the shoulders of modeler/animator Ed McDonough, who rolled with each change and kept up with the smaller deadlines in order to keep the project moving forward.

   

Another issue that was overcome was the story itself. Our initial storyboards told a tale of approximately six minutes in length. Marvel reviewed them, made changes, and sent back to us a thirteen-and-a-half minute movie. After making most of those changes and realizing the movie would not be completed by the deadline, the decision was made to edit the picture and drop it down to around eight minutes. Final touches were made, and now the picture clocks in at just less than nine minutes (with credits). I can definitely see that DAVE School offers their 4th-term students a “real-world working environment” – and I don’t know of any other animation school that offers a comparable program.

But ten days before deadline, we had just received the voice-acting for the movie – meaning we had to complete roughly half of it in less than two weeks. Our instructors were convinced that it wouldn’t be done on time, and a number of students were certain that graduation was (at that time) a pipe-dream. But in the final days, some additional help was obtained by recruiting select students from the 3rd term, who had just learned the skill of lip-syncing, and some of the 4th term students pulled a series of all-nighters in order to get the picture done. In the end, through hard teamwork and dedication, we made deadline. Everything came together so that on graduation night, with friends and family in attendance, we were able to watch our finished production on the big screen. For me, seeing something I’d helped to complete up on the huge movie theater screen was an outstanding experience I won’t soon forget. Add to that experience the fact that we – a group of students fresh out of school – are having our movie packaged with the Minimate toys and distributed nationwide in early 2006, and I can safely say that I got more than my money’s worth for my education.

Some would argue that making a phenomenal movie is what an animator’s job is all about. Others would say that making great grades is a student’s priority. Still a few more would urge that an artist never compromises a piece – no matter how long it takes to complete. Personally, I think that doing the best job one can in the time allotted (for “Thou Shalt Not Miss Deadline” was the eleventh commandment), will usually produce the best results. And because of that philosophy, I managed to “keep it off the rug”.

The X-Men minimates and DVD will be available at Target and specialty stores nationwide and containing New X-Men Wolverine, Magneto, Juggernaut and New X-Men Cyclops with new facial expressions. The Darktide Minimates box set is a great sign of what’s to come for the Marvel Minimates Universe!

Mike Rizzuto is a graduate of the DAVE School and recently finished work on the animated short film, X-Men:Darktide. He’s now looking for work in southern Connecticut.

About William Vaughan
A recipient of several New Media Addy awards, Vaughan has an extensive background in creative 3D for print, web, multimedia, games and broadcast. During the last 10 years, Vaughan has delivered award-winning work for clients such as Compaq, New Line Cinema, and Halliburton. Vaughan has also trained artists at several studios and schools around the world and contributed to six LightWave 3D books throughout 2003 and 2004.

In 2002 Vaughan joined NewTek's marketing team as the LightWave 3D Evangelist, working closely with the LightWave development team, key accounts, and the growing number of end users to enhance LightWave's features set.

About The Dave School
Headquartered in Orlando, Florida, The DAVE School is a premiere educational facility for computer artists focusing on animation and visual effects for TV, film, and games. Established by Jeff and Anne Scheetz in 2000, The Digital Animation & Visual Effects School teaches employable skills in the art of computer animation and visual effects creation. Scheetz's vision is to institutionalize a vast body of visual effects knowledge, techniques and traditions and pass it on to the next generation of creative digital artists. For more information visit www.daveschool.com or call 407-224-DAVE (3283).