IA: What was the most difficult scene to do? Why?

BB : I think the final real world scenes of the Italian/European street. They still are not real enough for me, but part of that goes to the amount of shots and the lack of radiosity when I started the project. I knew I would not achieve 100% photo real with this at an early stage, so the film gives me a lucky artistic loophole. It is supposed to be a dream or a fantasy created by the builder so a little dream-like quality is okay.

IA: Did you have to modify or change any part of the script due to software/hardware limitations?

BB : I didn’t have time to shoot one little sub-plot where the builder sneaks out of his hiding place to fix a spot he missed to finish while the woman is transfixed by the flower. He was supposed to go and fix it. But as it is now and editorially it works much better because we don’t need to bother with that. I probably would have come to that conclusion in the final edit process anyway. You don’t need that extra beat once she gets to the flower.

IA: Did you develop any special techniques and/or script for this movie?

Not really. I learned some great green screen keying techniques while working with CafeFX on King Kong. Tricks learned by the crew that did Sin City, which was also shot on HD.



IA: Can you tell us about the light management and montage in the short?

BB : This was started before the use of radiosity was widely available. Today, I think I could make it look twice as real and physical, and detailed; while also rendering it twice as fast in full Monte Carlo or Final Gather radiosity. Instead I used soft lights, and spinning lights to get the ambient occlusion look.

IA: What do you think you’ve learned from this experience?

BB : Well, one thing I've learned is to believe in your project no matter what. I finished this film 2 years ago and sent it into the festival circuit. It was widely rejected by almost all festivals I sent it to. In the few that it did get into (some very good festivals) it always won an award. But the film never was widely accepted and nothing ever came of it, so about 4-6 months ago I put it online and sort of forgot about it. In the past few weeks it started to take off on its own. It is very strange, and quite a vindication.