Salman Sajun's "THE PROCESS"

THE PROCESS is a project that is incredibly near to my heart! It is the core of what everyone of my projects is made of. It is my way of working, my philosophy and the method to my madness (so to speak) …

This project was a real labour of love and it started of with the simple want to create something fun and to give people a peek into what goes behind creating one of my projects.

PRE PRODUCTION

It started with a simple treatment, chalking out all the key moments I wanted to highlight, a few brainstorms with my lead animator(Anna), refining concept and talking animation and movement. Then, it was straight to storyboards!

Storyboarding is a super important step for me as this is where the entire concept is clarified in my mind and I know how each scene and its transitions are meant to flow. This was also the time that I was able to bring the rest of the team onboard.

I knew that this project was going to be very props heavy. And I was extremely lucky to have one of Montreals best Art Directors jump onboard! I was also able to bring onboard a team for her to work with which included a paper props specialist aka Miss Cloudy who is a professional paper origami artist! Yes, her job is as awesome as it sounds! I wanted to keep everything in paper and wood and she was a real God send! Art Director (Sarah) proposed some really killer options for style and colours, and 7 weeks of building each individual prop by hand with paper, glue, wood and a crap tone of paper cuts later, we had an arsenal of props ready to be shot!

PRODUCTION

The shoot was really well spread out and took over 4 weeks of shooting! It was long but rewarding as we all got to see transitions all live as we shot it! One of the perks of shooting things in stop motion! One of the first rules of this shoot was to make sure that every effect was caught in camera without any CG or 3D. I feel there is little hint of magic when using practical effects and truly capturing everything live as oppose to having it generated in CG. There is an authenticity that I wanted to bring across with this project in doing so and I feel it made it all the more special. Hell, at one point we even had a table built that flipped over because I wanted to have a spin transition but had to stick to the rule of not creating it in post :) There was a ton of problem solving and finding ways to create transitions and tricks inc camera and I was so happy to have the Kessler Crane CineDrive and Second Shooter Plus in my arsenal to help support story telling!

POST

This is where my lead Editor and Sound Designer came together and really created magic! Each project goes though so many rounds of evolution and during the sound design phase I feel this project really underwent a real evolution. From fighting to have a voice over to not even having music. The sound design treatment that Mattia wove in was so strong that I had to keep it pure and leave it as is!

This project would not have been possible without the crazy push from the entire team! There were countless hours spent! Each creative really pushed above and beyond and I cant wait to be back on set with this talented crew!

Credits | Director and Visual Concept - Salman Sajun | Art Director - Sarah Oueller