“Hamsa” (2020)
Thesis BLOG
Meet the team!
Daniela Dwek: Director, Story, Character TD, FX TD
Maya Mendonça: Producer, Lead Animator/Previs
Chrisy Baek: Production Coordinator, Environment TD, Lighting/Comp TD
Why Hamsa?
“Hamsa” is an Arabic word (pronounce kh-am-sa). It’s literal meaning is the number Five for it looks like is a hand (thus the five fingers) and is often depicted as an amulet popular throughout the Middle East and North Africa and commonly used in jewelry and wall hangings.
It is used as a symbol of protection predominantly within the Muslim and Jewish communities, to provide defense against the evil eye.
Synopsis
A young Israeli girl is oblivious to the historical conflict she lives in. On a trip to the market with her mother, she is reminded to fear “the other”. However, when chaos strikes she finds that the people she was once afraid of are not so different.
When faced with a common danger, humanity teaches the people of this world that one must put his/her differences aside because we are all the same.
Follow us on Instagram @hamsathesis
Color script
art by felicia chen
ENVIRONMENTS
By Chrisy Baek
MARKET
When our thesis team came together, I said I really wanted to do an environment that is very cultural and something that hasn’t been done in a thesis student film. When Daniela told me her story, I thought this is the one! A street market has so many things to discover and I really wanted to make this massive scene that was based on a totally different country I’ve never gone to.
Taking on such a massive project, was extremely challenging. Adapting to a totally new culture I was not familiar with was harder than I could imagine. I looked through thousands of pictures, categorizing each reference pictures into a folder. Also by using google Maps I was able to take a tour around the Old City Arab Quarter in Jerusalem!
Market Blueprint Version 1
Nour’s Shop Plan
Working without concept was very challenging so I ended up making a blueprint for all the shops I could place in the market.
Then started blocking out where and drawing over block outs I did to visualize how I would set dress certain things.
Once all the structures were placed. I captured an overview of the market and created another draw over blueprint with the direction of the characters moving.
Market Blueprint Version 2
Iterations
It took a lot of trial and error, resizing the streets, seeing what worked with the story or not. Switching up some styles of modeling to reach the final look of the models!
Eventually we shrunk the street width three times less!
Environment Market Render
Here is a render of the End side of the Market!
There is still much more that need to be fixed but, texturing was a lot of fun.
Adding the final detail of plants, signage was a cherry on a cake.
I used a lot of procedural and triplanar on multiple objects for time sake. I made a rusty metal texture, wood shader, plant shader, cloth shader, and stone shader all procedurally to avoid UVing the whole scene.
It was really fun and life saving to learn procedural and triplanar shading.
TUNNEL
Initially it was a courtyard!
We wanted the ending to be this peaceful and beautiful environment but we ended up tossing the environment and making it into a more mysterious and light leaking tunnel way! In Jerusalem there are many tunnels inside the markets, and we ruled that it would benefit the story the most!
Farewell courtyard!
Tunnel
Inspired by the tunnel in Coco (2017) and referenced Jerusalem market tunnels.
Characters
by daniela Dwek
TIKVAH
ORA
NOUR
By gathering reference…
Daniela has created characters from references to be as true as it can be to the culture the story is about. The characters Tikvah, Ora, and Nour is influenced by both Jewish and Palestinian Israeli Cultures.
She did draw overs in order to improve her shape language and design in order to achieve believable characters.
Rigging & Animation
By Daniela Dwek & Maya Mendonca
NYU Tisch Program Actresses - Drew Lederman (Left) / Brooklyn Boukather (Right)
NYU Tisch Program Actresses - Brooklyn Boukather (Left) / Drew Lederman (Right)
As for the animation process, we filmed some actresses from NYU’s Tisch Program, Brooklyn Boukather (left) and Drew Lederman (right) for reference. This is extremely helpful and valuable to the animator’s authenticity and believability of the emtion we want to convey.
When it comes to rigging, I have a similar process where I like to establish what works or doesn’t work, and how I can make the use of the rig the easiest possible. I also asked Maya to do a Face Calisthenics to get a better understanding of the character, as well as to test the rig and how the groom is affected by it.
Animation by Maya Mendonca
Lighting by Chrisy Baek
Maya recruited an army of animators, it is time to get to production and do dailies, which involve reviewing the animation and giving notes to keep the overall appeal and keep the animation consistent.
She and her team of animators record reference multiple times in order to make it believable as much as possible!
Crowd
BY DANIELA DWEK
Here is some of Daniela’s process for the crowd:
She started off with 4 rigs with a base body type ( Male and Female Stout and Thin).
Then she sculpted 6 face variations per rig, which gives her at least 24 basic crowds to work with.
To further add diversity to the crowd, she made what she calls an ID Control. As you can see in the video, this gives our team the control to personalize clothes and various accessories.
Not only does she feel like this will diversify the crowd, it will also help us art direct it rather than randomize it and risking having multiple same characters in one scene.
She is also planning to vary up color and patterns on the clothes and skin to further vary the crowd.
Daniela’s Crowd Rig
Crowd Rig Demo
FX
BY DANIELA DWEK
Used Bifrost on Maya Rendered with Arnold
LIGHTING & cOMPOSITING
bY cHRISY bAEK
