words by Pat Longstreth

Colin Levy is a prodigy. He calls himself a director, but he has also mastered 3D animation, modeling, visual effects, editing, and photography. As someone who has dabbled in all of these fields myself, I couldn’t help but feel a little jealous(even dubious) to see success come so easily to someone so young.

But then I met him and I quickly became his biggest fan.

At first, Levy will strike you as inexperienced. He is 22 years old, although his thin frame and boyish face could pass for 18. He speaks softly and in short sentences. He may even come across as shy. But give him a minute and he blossoms. He’ll strike a cord with you. He will say something eloquent and thought provoking. Then he’ll let you speak. Then he’ll make a joke. Soon you realize that you are dealing with someone who is wise beyond his years – raised with good manners, patience, and the philosophy that humility wins in the end.

His success has come as the result of many years of hard work. He started taking photos in 5th grade. Then he started making short films with iMovie in the 7th grade. He has steadily moved up through the most technically and creatively challenging applications of 3D animation and visual effects. It’s no surprise that he is now settling into the role of a director. For a man who has worn so many hats, there is really no other place for him to be.

His choice to attend SCAD was a good one, and he has found great support for his film endeavors. In 2008 he was awarded $7,500 to co-direct a short commercial for Coca-Cola. The result, Disappearing Act, is a clever spot of impressive visual quality:

He then wrote and directed the very ambitious En Route. It debuted this last week at The Savannah Film Festival and won the Silver Screen Society’s Best SCAD Student Film Award, which comes with a $1,500 grant. It also won a $500 grant for the Savannah Film Commission Award, and director of photography, Jason Osterday, was awarded the Panavision Student Cinematography Award, which comes with an estimated $60,000 worth of free equipment use. The full 6-minute film is still on limited release, but you can watch the trailer here:

ADVENTURE ABROAD

Levy’s films tend to contain an element of adventure, and it seems fitting that the making of his latest film, Sintel, was an adventure for Levy himself.

Levy has been using the open-source 3D software Blender since high school. When he heard the company was looking to commission a short film using their software, he sent in his demo of work. He was selected to direct a 6-minute animated film over the course of six months. It wasn’t a hard decision for Levy to pack up his things, take a year off school, and head to Blender headquarters in Amsterdam.

Because of the “demands of the story”, the film swelled to 15 minutes. Levy describes the evolution of his staff, “we started out with one concept artist, one rigger, one animator, one modeler, one generalist, and me, the director. The producer ultimately decided it was worth bringing on more people and so we doubled the size of the team. We added more animators, a renderer, a compositor, and few others. There were 13 of us at the height of it. Once we had a full sized team things started to get done.”

The short film about a young dragon slayer is full of beautifully rendered CG landscapes, photo-real textures, and life-like animation. Watch it now if you have time:

It’s easy to point out the weaker shots in this film. Even Levy himself admits, “you always focus on the flaws and think that you could have done things better.” A skeptic of Blender software might say, “look at those shadows in the snow scene. Maya does a much better job of ambient occlusion.” But I think any student of animation and CG would agree that over half this film is on par with any of the biggest productions that have many times the staff, money, and all the software (consumer and proprietary) they would need. In it’s best shots (which I think come in the second half of the film), the modeling, animation, lighting, texturing, and cloth dynamics all meet the highest quality of CG on the market in 2010.

The film was released on Youtube a little over a month ago to wide acclaim. Levy is “overwhelmed by the quantity of positive comments. We’ve got almost 2 million hits right now.”

Levy was responsible for placing and animating the 3D camera for every shot in the film. The camera moves include real-life angles and subtle shakes that bring it into a more realistic space. Levy’s success again comes from experience. “Going through the shot design on En Route really prepared me for Sintel,” he explains. “You can place a virtual camera anywhere and do anything. In a world without constraints it’s easy to get carried away. I tried to keep the cameras grounded to realistic dolly and jib shots. My prior filmmaking experience really helped me with this.”

THE FUTURE IS BRIGHT

So what’s next for this shooting star? Lucky for us Savannah film makers he still has another year left at SCAD. He’ll be back next quarter to start producing and directing his final senior project. The plan has not specifically been laid out yet, but he is excited to use some of his winnings and a www.kickstarter.com fundraiser to make his next act a big production.

Keep an eye out for Colin Levy.

You can find out more about him and see more of his work at http://www.colinlevy.com/