Child’s Play

3D Concept Art presents, Child’s Play. A personal project interview with Murat Kılıç, he is from Istanbul, Turkey. He created the short trying to convey the feeling of war, and he states that nothing has value unless we grant it, and value does not mean anything unless we give it a meaning. Therefore is this short a very important piece of him. He is a director and a 3D generalist.

3D Concept Art presents a special projects interview about Child’s Play.

| 3D Concept Art: Child play is a dramatic short, tell us about your starting idea, how was it born?

| Murat kılıç: → Most of the time, I think about short film ideas or some visuals in my daily life and child’s play was one of the special ones and It was a question in my head. Why would people fight? who is fighting? and for what? So child’s play came to the life because of those questions.

| 3CA: When you started working on Childs play, is that any type of personal experience behind, and do you believe by creating this short, you found a way to give wisdom, a hidden message, a meaning?

| M.K: → I’ve never done a film like this before. At first, it was something much more complicated as a story and as a style. But I wanted to simplify it in a way that it still has a part of me.

My starting point was “Nothing has value unless we grant it, and value does not mean anything unless we give it a meaning”. There are pieces of a puzzle and I just wanted to let people make it meaningful or meaningless. I think another important point is music and sound design for the feeling, I’m really thankful to my talented friends Utkucan Eken and Lister Rossel for it.

| 3CA:How long time did it take to finalize Childs play and which were your major difficulties when trying achieve something at some point very abstract, emotional, different, psychological and provoking?

| M.K: → Child’s Play was a budgetless project so I had to do it in my free time while I was working as a freelancer, so it took more than a year but there were times that I couldn’t work on it for months. When I finally finish most of the stuff and got into the lighting phase, I told myself that I wouldn’t take any project until I finish this film. And finished it after two months.

The clearest part of the film was the feeling that I wanted to create before I started doing it. So I just focused on that and tried the find the right feeling. That was the easiest part for me because that’s what I felt. The hardest part was the technical parts like smoke, particles, and destruction and I’ve never tried those before. So I got a chance to learn and try those effects for the fist time.

| 3CA: During the modeling process, which model were the most difficult to create and try to keep at that level you wanted, with that certain realism that was needed and did you use any assets from libraries?

| M.K: → I took lots of reference pictures and videos of the items before I got into modeling phase and it was one of the most important parts of it. Because I knew I could do a better job if I could examine the real stuff. I modeled the toys especially with those references and the hardest one was the teddy bear and the soldiers because I wasn’t got used to modeling organic models. So that was also a first time for me and I had to do it over again for few times until I was satisfied with it. And I didn’t use any stock model because my needs were specific.

| 3CA:  They are different shots but one of the most impacting is where the helmet is broken up by a bullet, in a certain slow motion movement, very atmospheric, how was your process to achieve the 360 effect? Were that certain shots totally done in a CG software? Were all elements CG?

| M.K: → Yes, those shots are completely CG and I had to do it over and over again to get it to this point. The important part was the focus and also the depth of field. I used the particles and broken pieces for that 360 effect. And of course, lighting is one of the most important parts for that.

| 3CA: When you rendered the different shots, was it difficult to keep an even level? Describe a little bit of your process? Which resolution for texture did you aim at?

| M.K: → It wasn’t difficult because I created a board with the style frames of every scene. So I could see the light balances and differences and I kept changing things until it all was good and then I rendered the final visuals. The film was already over before I started rendering. I usually used 4k texture resolutions and for the teddy bear I have used 3 tile udim to get close ups. Everything depended on the shots, if it were closeups or not.

| 3CA: Another impacting shot is the Teddybear, How much time did you spend for that shot? Did you face any problems and how did you process the whole shot?

| M.K: → I modeled the teddy bear with the reference pictures I took. It took few days to model it without the fur and stuff and then I added everything on it. All the teddy bear shots took around 2 or 3 weeks. And again, the hardest part were the smoke simulations for me. The teddy bear is keyframe animated but everything else is a simulation.

| 3CA: What were your usual workflow for the whole short? Which was the most important Softwares?

| M.K: → First of all, I made a previs when I was done with the story. After that, I showed it to some people and got some advice. Finally, when everything was clear in my head, I found the assets, examine them and modeled. So I could watch the whole movie like it was done already and all I had to do fill the gaps. My 3D pipeline is mostly Maya but I used the Mudbox for texturing. I didn’t use any render farm and rendered it with few computers, and user Arnold Renderer. I didn’t mind waiting because it was a project that I did in my free time anyways.

| 3CA: As the time went by, sometimes you overthink and sometimes you loose the red thread for a moment. Which are the parts that you feel could be done better and why? Would you change it now?

| M.K: → It’s been three months but when I watch it now, I feel like it could be much better in an artistic and technical matter. I could make the beginning and the ending more colorful I had a second chance. I would change the money, I would ‘ve made it with other currencies which have different colors, not just with a dollar. Smoke could be more colorful the so it could be more ironic. I would definitely throw some scenes out of the film and would work on the music more for the ending scene. But of course, it’s just an experience like everything else. So I can do a better job next time.

| 3CA:  What is your advice when it comes to making this type projects and doing those individually during spare time?

| M.K: → I think the most important part is finding a story that it won’t make you bored until the project done. if you enjoying while you making it, everything is easy. And making it as short as possible would be better.

3D Concept Art Community thanks, Murat Kılıç for this interview about his Child’s Plays. Where he shares his knowledge and his road to get this short done, how he develops and thinks to make the vision, a feeling doable into an experience. A personal project and a finalization with a pursue to uncover a feeling and a visualization of a state of war.

What do you think of Project Child’s play?