Blast from the Past #655: April 13, 2005: Re: Lighting/Texture for Trailer

Subj: Re: Lighting/Texture for Trailer
Date: Wednesday, April 13, 2005 12:00:09 PM
From: Peter Laird
To:   Kevin Munroe

Kevin,

I managed to get the stuff this morning, using the wireless access at my favorite breakfast/lunch place in town, Hayfields.

The texture and color stuff looks GREAT! I am very happy with the overall look... if we can keep this kind of detail and quality in the feature, I think we'll have something really cool. I especially like that contrast between the brightly lit cityscape in the background and the darker, more shadowy areas the Turtles are jumping around in. (Before I forget it -- something I wanted to bring up about the opening of the teaser: Rather than have all four Turtles standing in pretty much the same pose, I wonder if we should break it up a little -- not necessarily have ALL of them in wildly different postures, but it occurred to me that it would be neat to at least have Raph in a crouch, maybe on top of a pipe or something (similar to his pose in the first issue, in the full page before he sends Splinter's message to Oroku Saki).

Looking at the lighting of the alleyway, I was struck by the idea that it might be cool to add another light (like the one attached to the building at the end of the alley) which would be above the manhole cover, so that when we push in and get a good look at it, it would be well lit. Just a thought.

Re: Leo's chest strap: I'm not sure what to say. I'm not entirely sure what the issue is -- are you saying that when the model is built, the strap doesn't lay as it should, and needs to be distorted in a weird way to actually make it work when Leo moves around? I'm open to looking at different ideas for the strap and the way it attaches to both belt and scabbards, but I wonder also if it might be useful to look back at the way the Henson people made it work in the first live action movie. I must say that I am somewhat attached to the basic look of Leo's belt setup, so my preference would be to find a way to make that look work.

By the way -- nice interview! I don't know if you've had time to track any of the fan response to the announcement of the CGI movie, but it's been pretty interesting -- it's gone from about 20% pro/80% con to just about the exact reverse in the last couple of weeks, and I think what you said in your interview helped a lot to convince people that this was something to look forward to. 

-- Pete