This article may rely excessively on sources too closely associated with the subject , potentially preventing the article from being verifiable and neutral.(December 2015) |
Cosmos Laundromat | |
---|---|
![]() Film poster | |
Directed by | Mathieu Auvray |
Written by | Esther Wouda |
Produced by | Ton Roosendaal |
Starring | |
Music by | Sebastian Krause |
Layouts by | Sarah Laufer David Revoy |
Production company | |
Distributed by | Blender Foundation |
Release date |
|
Running time | 12 minutes |
Country | Netherlands |
Language | English |
Budget | 400,000 (euros) [1] |
Cosmos Laundromat: First Cycle, developed under the code name Project Gooseberry, is an animated absurdist sci-fi fantasy short film directed by Mathieu Auvray, written by Esther Wouda, and produced by Ton Roosendaal. It is the Blender Institute's 5th "open movie" project, and was made utilizing the Blender software. The film focuses around a depressed and suicidal sheep named Franck who's offered "all the lives he ever wanted" by a mysterious salesman named Victor. On August 10, 2015, it was released to YouTube. [2] The film was originally intended to kickstart a feature-length film. A short film sequel was written and designed but never brought to production. In 2020, Roosendaal announced that the one film would be the total of the project.
The film itself, along with the other Blender Foundation "open movies," was released under the Creative Commons Attribution License. [3]
On January 10, 2010, Ton Roosendaal announced the project. [4] [5] By January 2014, thirteen animation studios from all over the world (including the Blender Institute) were set to make the film. [6] The goals of the film, according to Ton Roosendaal, were to raise the bar for the Blender Institute with the idea of making a feature-length animated film using completely free and open-source software, investigate the use of cloud services for open-source projects, and to create a new business model for the Blender Foundation. [7] In March 2014, concept art [8] and project targets [9] for the project were revealed. A crowdfunding campaign also started around the same period. [10] Through the funding raised for production of the film, the Blender Foundation was able to improve on existing and/or add new features to the Blender software. [11] The film was expected to take 18 months to make, with 60–80 people participating full-time. [12]
The film starts with a sheep named Franck (voiced by Pierre Bokma) trying to hang himself from a tree branch. The branch that he tried to hang himself from however breaks. The camera zooms out while Franck screams out of frustration to show that he is on a large island. Then, still tied to the broken branch, he walks to the edge of a cliff of the island. He tries to push the branch tied to his neck off, but while attempting to so, a man named Victor (voiced by Reinout Scholten van Aschat) walks up to Franck from behind. He says, "Excuse me," and asks if he "has a moment." Franck replies with, "I'm kind of in the middle of something," of which Victor replies with, "I've come a long way for you Franck," and reveals his name. Victor tries to talk Franck out of suicide and asks for one minute of his time. Eventually Franck decides to give in and lets Victor put a collar around him saying, "This is the best product we have in-store, variable spin-speed, excellent tumble performance in one handy device." A timer goes off and Victor says, "Time flies." Franck is frantically asking what he should do and Victor responds with, "Just stay here." As Victor walks away, he puts a cassette tape in his tape player (which resembles a Sony Walkman) and presses the play button. As music begins to play, the inside of a giant laundry machine appears out of the sky along with a colorful tornado from inside, which Franck runs away from. Other sheep on the island around gather around Victor to watch. Franck eventually gets sucked up into the tornado, and the other sheep watch in a state of awe. Franck wakes up to find out he has been transported to a purple jungle and that he turned into a caterpillar. The camera then zooms out to show that he is in a washing machine inside the titular Cosmos Laundromat. Victor gets out of one of the other washing machines, and as he is about to light up a cigarette, another timer goes off. Victor stops what he was doing and rushes past the camera, thus cutting to a screen displaying, "To be continued."
Cosmos Laundromat has received positive reviews from critics and animators alike.
At SIGGRAPH 2015, various people from Pixar, Walt Disney Animation Studios, DreamWorks, Industrial Light & Magic and Sony Imageworks praised the film for the storytelling, the character animations and the visuals. However, two main critiques it received were about the beginning scene where Franck tries to hang himself and the use of the word "fuck." [13] [14]
Brendan Hesse of Lifehacker praised the film for its HDR effects and animation. [15]
Ceremony | Award | Date of ceremony | Result | Ref(s) |
---|---|---|---|---|
Animago Award & Conference 2015 | Jury's Award | October 16, 2015 | Won | [16] |
2016 Webby Awards | Online Film & Video Animation | May 16, 2016 | Nominated | [17] |
2016 SIGGRAPH Computer Animation Festival | Jury's Choice Award | July 24–28, 2016 | Won | [18] |
Animayo 2017 | Gran Premio del Jurado (Grand Jury Prize) Mejor cortometraje 3D (Best 3D short film) | May 16, 2017 | Won | [19] |
On August 10, 2015, the film was uploaded to the official Blender YouTube channel. On September 9, 2015, the film was made available on DVD and USB data cards; and on October 19, 2015, it was made available on Blu-ray. They all include various featurettes, the production files, project's branch binary, and version 2.76 of the Blender software. [20] On September 24, 2015, the film premiered at the Netherlands Film Festival, [21] and in October 2015, it was shown at the Animago Awards and Conference, where it won the Jury's Award. [16]
On August 20, 2015, Ton Roosendaal posted that the second part (which is supposed to take place in the "purple jungle" Franck found himself in) was written, designed, and most of the storyboard was ready. On April 12, 2018, Roosendaal said that they would keep the idea of a sequel open, but said that if they got the necessary amount of funding for a feature film, they would make something different, and just keep Cosmos Laundromat as a "short film" side project. [13]
Roosendaal announced Cosmos Laundromat ep. 2 on October 24, 2019, at the annual Blender Conference, noting that the story was still being fleshed out and that work would begin by the end of the year. [22] However, on May 22, 2020, Roosendaal announced that they were once again dropping the project. [23]
Rendering or image synthesis is the process of generating a photorealistic or non-photorealistic image from a 2D or 3D model by means of a computer program. The resulting image is referred to as a rendering. Multiple models can be defined in a scene file containing objects in a strictly defined language or data structure. The scene file contains geometry, viewpoint, textures, lighting, and shading information describing the virtual scene. The data contained in the scene file is then passed to a rendering program to be processed and output to a digital image or raster graphics image file. The term "rendering" is analogous to the concept of an artist's impression of a scene. The term "rendering" is also used to describe the process of calculating effects in a video editing program to produce the final video output.
Computer animation is the process used for digitally generating moving images. The more general term computer-generated imagery (CGI) encompasses both still images and moving images, while computer animation only refers to moving images. Modern computer animation usually uses 3D computer graphics.
Blender is a free and open-source 3D computer graphics software tool set that runs on Windows, MacOS, BSD, Haiku, and Linux. It is used for creating animated films, visual effects, art, 3D-printed models, motion graphics, interactive 3D applications, virtual reality, and, formerly, video games. Blender's features include 3D modelling, UV mapping, texturing, digital drawing, raster graphics editing, rigging and skinning, fluid and smoke simulation, particle simulation, soft body simulation, sculpting, animation, match moving, rendering, motion graphics, video editing, Python scripting, and compositing.
Autodesk Animator is a 2D computer animation and painting program published in 1989 for MS-DOS. It was considered groundbreaking when initially released.
The Blender Foundation is a Dutch nonprofit organization (Stichting) responsible for the development of Blender, an open-source 3D content-creation program.
Elephants Dream is a 2006 Dutch animated science fiction fantasy experimental short film produced by Blender Foundation using, almost exclusively, free and open-source software. The film is English-language and includes subtitles in over 30 languages.
Motion graphics are pieces of animation or digital footage that create the illusion of motion or rotation, and are usually combined with audio for use in multimedia projects. Motion graphics are usually displayed via electronic media technology, but may also be displayed via manual powered technology. The term distinguishes static graphics from those with a transforming appearance over time, without over-specifying the form. While any form of experimental or abstract animation can be called motion graphics, the term typically more explicitly refers to the commercial application of animation and effects to video, film, TV, and interactive applications.
Pierre Henri Martin Bokma is a Dutch stage, television and film actor.
Fluid animation refers to computer graphics techniques for generating realistic animations of fluids such as water and smoke. Fluid animations are typically focused on emulating the qualitative visual behavior of a fluid, with less emphasis placed on rigorously correct physical results, although they often still rely on approximate solutions to the Euler equations or Navier–Stokes equations that govern real fluid physics. Fluid animation can be performed with different levels of complexity, ranging from time-consuming, high-quality animations for films, or visual effects, to simple and fast animations for real-time animations like computer games.
Michael Arias is an American-born filmmaker active primarily in Japan.
MotionBuilder is a 3D character animation software produced by Autodesk. It is used for virtual cinematography, motion capture, and traditional keyframe animation. It was originally named Filmbox when it was first created by Canadian company Kaydara, later acquired by Alias and renamed to MotionBuilder. Alias in turn was acquired by Autodesk.
Ton Roosendaal is a Dutch software developer and film producer. He is the original creator of the open-source 3D creation suite Blender and Traces. He is also known as the founder and chairman of the Blender Foundation, and for pioneering large scale open-content projects. In 2007, he established the Blender Institute in Amsterdam, where he works on coordinating Blender development, publishing manuals and DVD training, and organizing 3D animation and game projects.
Sintel is a 2010 animated fantasy short film. It was the third Blender "open movie". It was produced by Ton Roosendaal, chairman of the Blender Foundation, written by Esther Wouda, directed by Colin Levy, at the time an artist at Pixar and art direction by David Revoy, who is known for Pepper&Carrot an open source webcomic series. It was made at the Blender Institute, part of the Blender Foundation. The plot follows the character, Sintel, who is tracking down her pet Scales, a dragon. Just like the other Blender "open movies," the film was made using Blender, a free and open source software application for animation, created and supported by the Blender Foundation.
Tears of Steel is a short science fiction film by producer Ton Roosendaal and director/writer Ian Hubert. The film is both live-action and CGI; it was made using new enhancements to the visual effects capabilities of Blender, a free and open-source 3D computer graphics app. Set in a dystopian future, the short film features a group of warriors and scientists who gather at the Oude Kerk in Amsterdam in a desperate attempt to save the world from destructive robots.
The Louis d'Or is a Dutch acting award, given annually to the actor with the most impressive leading role of the theater season. It is awarded by the Vereniging van Schouwburg- en Concertgebouwdirecties (VSCD), the main trade organisation for theaters in The Netherlands. The award itself is a golden medal, currently designed by Eric Claus. It was named after the Dutch actor Louis Bouwmeester. Its female counterpart is the Theo d'Or.
Blend4Web is a free and open source framework for creating and displaying interactive 3D computer graphics in web browsers.
Till Nowak is a German digital artist and visual artist, graphic designer and filmmaker. He received recognition for his grad project, the 2005 film Delivery, and for his art piece The Experience of Fliehkraft and its film offshoot The Centrifuge Brain Project, both released in 2011, and more recently for his 2015 film Dissonance.
Experience Curiosity is an interactive web application developed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory to celebrate the third anniversary of the Curiosity rover landing on Mars. This 3D serious game makes it possible to operate the rover, control its cameras and the robotic arm and reproduces some of the prominent events of the Mars Science Laboratory mission. The application was presented at the beginning of the WebGL section at SIGGRAPH 2015.
Reinout Scholten van Aschat is a Dutch actor.
Spring is a 2019 animated fantasy short film written and directed by Andreas Goralczyk and produced by Ton Roosendaal and Francesco Siddi. It is the Blender Institute's 12th "open movie", and was made utilizing the open-source software, Blender. The film is about a young shepherd and her dog confronting ancient spirits in order to bring about the change of seasons. The film was funded by the Blender Foundation, with donations from the Blender community. The film and any material made in the studio was released under a Creative Commons License.