What happens when one man spends fifteen months, working up to fourteen hours a day, weekdays and weekends, non-stop? The Don Burroni Puppetshow is a comedy satire show based on CG rendered characters. However, what's fascinating about this show is that it has been pulled together entirely by one person. All the CG, rendering, post production, PC builds, voice acting and so on. As such the show is a great example to what can be achieved by one person with enough dedication, and as an added bonus it's a pretty good laugh too. We caught up with 'the Don' himself to find out what makes him tick.
Hi Don (to use your more famous pseudo name!), love your show! Guess the first question is what drove you to create the show!? Was this a natural progression from previous projects or was it a spur of the moment idea?
Hi, I guess it was natural progression, I mainly do Architectural Visualization work and clients just wanted more and more, to the point where people ask for the earth and everything in it, like the magic box can just make me a city, lol. Also I don't get too much personal satisfaction from making someone else's buildings, so I started making a George Bush caricature and it all went from there.
What was the most enjoyable thing about producing the series?
I enjoyed the whole thing, from sculpting, writing, rendering, editing, plus having my own mocap studio. It was a complete buzz!!!! But I guess being able to see it all come together hit me with ‘Shock and Awe' as George Bush would say.
Ok and the worst thing?
Trying to sell the show, I guess you may know it's called Don Burroni's Puppet Show ‘The Hunt for Osama' (Bin Laden). Most broadcasters aren't willing to take the gamble, plus I only have a very limited background in broadcast industry. But the whole production process went very smoothly.
I love the Mr. T character, chup foo! How do you go about creating a caricature of a famous person? Is there a certain process you go through to identify and exaggerating the distinguishing features?
I make the heads in Zbrush, I start by making the head as lifelike as possible then I add the humor where needed, I generally look at a face and think A would he look funny B could I do the voice, if yes the both then I get stuck in, Zbrush is great for making those kind of changes and keeping detail intact, I did start to draw the caricatures, but to be honest I just get straight to it with Zbrush now, I made Simon Cowell the other day took me about 2 hours, when I started they would take more than 2 weeks.
So what software do you use to produce your videos?
I use so much software too much to list here, but I use Zbrush for all the modeling and texturing, even the hard surfaces, it just so fast. And Frantic Films Deadline for my render manager (this saved my life). Without those two, I couldn't have made the show, I find most other 3d apps much the same. I love Blender because it free! When you start building a render farm the cost factors are paramount. I can't afford 50k on Render clients, maybe when I sell the show!
What's your background? How long have you studied CG?
About 4 years, but before that I was used to making Class A surfaces (Nurbs), I'm a qualified Industrial Design Engineer, so I could use Autocad, Studiotools, and Catia before. It was a little different, but to be honest animation it just less accurate, I love it! I'm used to having to make water tight models, with very high tolerances for manufacture. Although Zbrush has new plugins that will allow export in STL files from Zbrush, I'm excited!
One of the most striking things about this series is that it was produced by a one-man team (that's you by the way!).
Thanks, I think it's a first, I've done it all including all the acting - which to say voices/mocap - and I worked around the clock for 15 months, 9 in the morning to 12 at night, like a machine, checking renders through the night, I just wanted to expand my knowledge at first, and I just got more and more into it, for me when I first saw Fifty Cent talking for the first time I was over the moon!
I'm curious, you mention you even built your PC systems for this and it has the power of circa 200 PCs - can you elaborate?
Yes, every time I did a job I would just buy more computer power with the cash. I started my LockOne company in 2005 and in the time since have not paid myself any money. I have about 100 Xeon CPUs, not huge but large all the same for one man. But the electricity bills were surprisingly low. Also I exclusively use Quadro FX graphics cards, and Black Magic Decklink cards for editing, I find them the best. Great combo - trouble free.
In the tightened economic climate, I guess what you've demonstrated is a ‘proof of concept' of a greatly simplified production process - taking a lean methodology to the ultimate extreme. Do you think there are lessons major production houses could take from your experiences?
Yep, send me some work!!, lol, I don't think it's all about manpower, although it defiantly helps. I've demonstrated I hope that one man can do it all, on time and on budget, I made 202.5 min of animation in 15 months, from concept and script to completion - and learning much of the technology as I went along - with high quality results. An unmentioned CGI 8-episode TV show had a team of 150 people and took 9 months. I feel the Burroni show is better for it, I made no compromises during production and had full creative freedom, not one meeting was held during production, that cut cost I'm sure. More work for Don Burroni, please!
Thanks very much for taking the time to speak with us, and best of luck in the next fifteen months!
To find out more about the Don Burroni Puppetshow, visit the official site (you can also visit the Don Burroni Youtube Channel for more snippets)
