Watch the teaser trailer HERE!

Teaser Credits

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To the many who have bled into this project, thank you. I am forever in your debt.
~Joe


Rigging / Tools
David Suroviec
-Dave was instrumental in building the human character rigs as well as many of the under sea creature rigs including the giant squid, stingray, sharks, jellyfish, and implementing our crab auto-walk rig.  He also wrote scripts for the production to speed up object placement and tech-anim corrective blendshapes.  Dave is a Character TD at Disney.  He is also a friggin tall great guy.
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Sound
Eric Arvai - Composer and Foley Artist
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Steve Orlando -Sound Designer and Re-Recording Mixer
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Eric and Steve are two amazing professionals who have given up a ton of their spare time over the past months to work on this project.  Eric is an Emmy award-winning composer who teaches at Ex'pression College, and Steve is an assistant sound editor at Skywalker.  They are both superhumans.

Animation
Mike DiNocco
-Mike animated a number of technically challenging shots on the teaser including the shot where the starfish pushes the grass and then blasts away the hoard of crabs, the sailors shooting, and a shot of the giant squid.  Mike is constantly refining his craft and a great person to have on a team.
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Elissa Peterson
-Elissa animates fast and creates appealing performances.  As a recent grad at the time, she was awesome to have helping the students and set a great example for quality of animation.  She is currently studying at Animation Mentor as well as animating professionally.  Watch out for her!
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Kimberlee Allyn
-Kim has unbridled enthusiasm equaled only by her drive to perfect her shots.  She worked with the starfish, as well as our most difficult character rig (the octopus) bringing charm to some key shots.
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Gillian Mantchev
-Gillian tackled the giant squid wrapping its arms around the ship mast, not an easy shot in the slightest, but she kept coming back for revisions and knocked it out of the park.  Super hard worker with a great attitude.
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Susie Czompo
-Susie animated the sailors and admiral characters in the first couple shots.
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Lighting / Compositing
Asif Haque
-Asif is one of the hardest working student compositors I've worked with.  He is dedicated and focused and lives for critique.  He was a large part of the development of our rendering and comp pipeline for Nuke, and comped a number of shots in the teaser.  He's recently graduated and looking for work.  Hire him!
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Curtis Cheung
-Curtis also played a large role in finishing the teaser, coming in at the 11th hour.  He has an excellent eye and has a broad skillset, so he was a huge asset to the team.  He worked well no matter how much or little direction I gave him on his shots, and was a great help to the rest of the team.
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Christopher Tichenor
-Chris lit and comped the first shots to be finaled in the teaser and thus laid the pipeline that was developed for compositing.  He researched, prepared tools and tutorials for the other students, and was eager to try something new.
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Enrique Escudero
-Enrique jumped in to help with lighting and compositing the very first shot of the teaser.
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Nicole Burch
-Remember those wiggling jellyfish?  Thank Nicole for comping those together in her spare time.


Modeling/Shading
Claire Bussell
-Claire modeled the sushi house set, the sea urchin set, and finalized the octopus garden set.  She has a great eye for design and works quickly and efficiently.  A pleasure to have around.
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Janine LaBar
-Janine painted textures for every crab in the teaser, as well as the sea urchin and octopus garden sets, and added bruises to the sailors.  She has a great eye for color and design, and was able to make changes quickly while assisting her other team members.
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Rob Garcia
-Rob modeled and shaded the undersea volcano set in the final shot as well as the set where the crabs are crawling down the rocks toward the starfish early in the teaser.
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Chris Padilla
-Chris did hard surface modeling on the project, creating the crane on the ship and the fish tank set.
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Jared Newkirk
-Jared was instrumental in dressing sets and wrangling sand.
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Particle FX
Abe Rodriguez
-Abe was our bubble wrangler, among other things.  He was responsible for the simulation of all of the bubbles in the teaser, and a few poofs of sandy silt here and there.  Abe kept coming back wanting more shots and saw it through to the end.  He's a talented generalist.
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Peter Whiteside
-Peter was an invaluable part of the team.  As an instructor, he coached students through dynamics troubles, as well as simulated the particles in the giant clam shots near the teaser's end.
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Jenna Kind
-Jenna simulated the sand in the shot where the giant crab's claw narrowly misses the starfish, as well as bubbles and sand for the final shot.
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Chris Lee
-Chris began development on a pipeline for creating silt particles for our shots.
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Amber Schueler, Hussam Awadalla, and Berardo Cervantes
-These three students helped shoot practical effects footage for bubbles, silt, and poofs of sand in some shots.  After blowing for 30 minutes through a narrow straw, Berardo is currently in need of a new lung.

Special Thanks:
 Jed Mitchell
Andrew Schlussel
Brian Andrews
Kevin Schlack
Ferris Webby
Skywalker Sound
Ex'pression College for Digital Arts

And to my wife, Emily, thank you for supporting my need to work on this project over the years.  You make it all worth while.  I love you!