Melting away - Postings - Brief Article

Post, Sept, 2003

MINNEAPOLIS -- Solder Man, a four-minute, 3D-animated film conceived, written and directed by Crash & Sue's (www.crash-sues.com) animation director Dave Novak, was featured at the Computer Animation Festival during SIGGRAPH.

Novak used Alias Maya to model and animate Solder Man, a quirky tale of problem solving. The film opens with Solder Man in his fully CG environment, sitting on the work desk of an unseen stained-glass window artist. The small creature is fabricating himself from a reel of shiny solder and has just finished twisting and twining a leg and foot when he discovers there's only a small bit of solder left. He fashions a wiry, spindly leg and wobbles about until he sees a sign above the desk reading "Use Your Head," which he takes literally.

For SolderMan, Novak's Crash & Sue's colleague, Discreet Inferno artist Jake Parker, provided compositing and visual effects, including smoke particles from the hot soldering iron. Original music and sound design was by Crash & Sue's sister company, Echo Boys, with Alex Berglund and Billy Franklin composers and Tom Lecher sound designer.

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