SUMMARYThe very first task in visual development was figuring out exactly what the voting booth should feel like. Then they made a 3D test to make sure the action worked before they got started.This shot was entirely recreated with 2D software and cut outs once we were comfortable with the movement. While they tested out the motion of the picture, they began to making their model for huge piles of money. They only really scattered $50 over a paper mache mound then cut and colored it in Photoshop. Then they filmed the money falling on a red sheet so they can use technology to extract just the dollars falling from the sky and then layer it in on top of the animation. This process is called “keying”. Here’s a clip of the film after the “keying” (or dropping out the red).To get the characters to appear as if they are throwing the money requires a lot of small, complex movements. To do that in animation means you have to break the character into lots of symbols that can be moved independently of one another. Here are all the pieces that we used to pose and rigg up our characters and their money bags so they could be placed on the steps.While the character animation was happening, we began to recreate the 3D camera move winding up the stairs. We used 2D cut out elements in after Adobe After Effects to create the illusion of 3D. This is one of the first attempts and we used temporary assets to help us figure out what kind of shapes we would need for the final pass.
