PRODUCTION
MAKING OF:
I SPY YOUR PRIVATES
CHARACTERS
Dougie
All Special Agent Dougie wants is to
do his job with as little effort as possible
and to retire as painlessly as he can with his big, fat pension. He is a chronic procrastinator, a talented underachiever, and views the antagonist stealing a bomb as more of an inconvenience than anything. He gets the job done using methods that may stray outside of societal norms, such as running through a city in the nude or using an old woman as a projectile weapon.
Dougie was conceived to be a disorganized and kind of lazy version of a spy- like the intersection of James Bond and Austin Powers, and the inspiration for his look was taken from characters like Peter B. Parker from Spiderman: Into the Spiderverse, and various David Tennant characters. He moves to the beat of his heaviest limbs, which are his head, hands, and feet, as seen in his goofy running throughout the film. His shape language is very square and blocky, to help illustrate his blunt and confident style. His hands are all knuckle, which add a unwieldy, clumsy effect to his movements.
CARMEN
Special Agent Carmen is an Interpol spy who is tasked with recovering the bomb from Dougie and taking it back to her headquarters. She is calculating and efficient, and has less of a moral compass than Dougie. She uses any means necessary to keep the bomb away from Dougie, including deliberately putting others in harm’s way, as demonstrated when she yanks a cane out from under an old woman in order to slow Dougie down. Like two sides of the same coin, Carmen is gracefully sharp which directly contrasts Dougie’s bluntness.
Supporting
Characters
Our world is populated by several supporting characters, a waiter, a granny and a baby.
Our waiter works at a restaurant that he is way too cool for. His shape language is also blocky, but rounder than Dougie’s, showing that he’s confident and stable, but probably is nicer to customers than Dougie would be, merely an obstacle.
Our sweet, little old woman is an innocent bystander just trying to cross the street with the help of her cane. Her shapes are very soft and round, she gives candy to her grandkids and pinches their cheeks every time she sees them.
Our poor baby was left outside in her pram, which her mother parked outside the store she went to buy some milk from. The bomb that lands in the baby’s lap pushes the pram into motion, turning it into a vehicle that Dougie uses to transport himself and the bomb to the San Francisco bay. This adventure inspired the baby to do something about the city’s infrastructure. 30 years later, the baby will be elected as the mayor of San
Francisco.
story
Animatic
Since I Spy Your Privates is an action-comedy, we spent a lot of time making sure that our boards hit comedy beats as well as action beats. Our boards started out by giving a lot more time to our characters and their reactions, but we cut a lot of those pauses. This allowed us to spend more time to produce quality action shots. A lot of the boards here were either modified or cut entirely, since going into production had us realize that there were even more boards that should be cut.
ENVIRONMENTS
Our city was based off of the Chinatown area of San Francisco, so we incorporated a lot of Chinese stylized roofs and signs, along with different types of buildings packed in tightly together. An important part of the story is the downhill street that leads to the bay where the bomb eventually gets tossed into.
We wanted the environment to have that hand-drawn scribbly look that we see in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem. We achieved that by having a mix of procedural textures and hand-drawn decals. The procedural textures made in Substance Painter are being used for midground and background models, while hand drawn textures were made into decals for surfaces closer to the camera.
After multiple trials of error, in order to achieve the grungy stylized look we were aiming for, we utilized the specific program in Unreal Engine. We utilized Deferred Decal Actors in Unreal. Decals are like stickers that can be put on any flat surfaces in engine. Decals were incredibly powerful as we could reuse and replace decals with ease, precision, and most importantly speed. The texturing process was unconventional compared to a standard film, as we were lighting and texturing at the same time. The power of Unreal allowed us to develop both the lighting and the texturing of the film simultaneously.
Animation
PROOF OF CONCEPT
An important aspect to the storytelling of our film was the visual style. Since Special Agent Dougie is disorganized, unkempt, and generally lazy, we wanted the world to mimic his grunge like aesthetic.
For the general look of the film, we referenced the Spiderverse films as well as TMNT: Mutant Mayhem for the 3D style that heavily incorporates 2D. One aspect that was notable was the use of brush stroke textures, impact frames, and overshooting lines both on characters and environments.
We included a lot of visual information within the props and environments to help the city feel bustling and exciting. We pushed strong and opposing shape language for characters, referencing Robert Valley character designs for shows like Motor City.