?‚àö√ë‚àö‚â§Diversion’s is a brilliant short film created by Mill animator Aidan Gibbons and Simon Reeves. Both animators have graduated from the University of Hertfordshire time with 1st Class Honours in Digital Animation. Aidan has been employed at The Mill and Simon has been employed at Fluid Pictures.

The film is about a group of road signs that go for a ramble and wreak havoc in the local village. The renegade group of signs grows in size as their journey continues with one sign making a greak for the border as it boards a plane to Croatioa!

You can get the full breakdown of the making of Diversion as well as a hi-res version by reading the Diversion Production Blog at the Official Diversion website here! You can also discuss the Film with the authors in this thread over at VFXTalk.com!

The main idea behind the film was to create something lighthearted, original and something that would hold the audience interest. They also wanted to create a film that had a flexible narrative during filming. Previous to ?‚àö√ë‚àö‚â§Diversion’s they had both made full 3D films the year before and wanted to try their hands at something new. Aidan and Simon were inspired by the innovative commercials and music videos they saw coming out of post production houses such as The Mill.

The quirky film incorporates 3D elements composited into a live action background. They used a trusty Panasonic GS400 DV cam to shoot the live action elements and then tracked the rushes which gave them a digital copy of their analogue camera footage.

They then rendered all of their 3D elements on to several layers (sometimes as many as twenty) and then applied those layers on top of the live action. The final stage was the colour grade which made the layers appear as seamless as possible.

The whole film took approximately 5 months to complete from storyboarding to final grading and they used a variety of software. XSI was used for the majority of 3D work and compositing, Shake was also used to composite and Rotoscope, whilst Boujou was used to track and Combustion was used to grade.

Aidan and Simon have recently won an award for Best Visual Effects at the Global Student Animation Awards (http://www.stashmedia.tv/gsaa/index.htm). The film will also feature in Manchester’s ‘Exposures’ film festival in December and will be on display at Bury St Edmund’s Gallery for the Platform 7 event. It also picked up the Jurys’s special mention award at the University of Hertfordshire’s film day.

Click here to view video!

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