Lost Sheep

Overview I'm working on a short film (~2 min), a personal project based on the parable of the Lost Sheep and story of the Good Shepherd from the New Testament, with a couple modern nods. It's a great excuse to get comfortable with techniques that I don't use often in the 3D pipeline like better retopology, and taking time to really pushing the textures/materials. I'm mainly using Maxon's Cinema4D, Redshift3D, Adobe Photoshop and After Effects. I've reworked a few old assets from tests and other projects for a quicker workflow. I'm really loving how it's coming along.

Behind the Story In a project like this, I get the chance to build a world while I tell a story. Every choice is an opportunity to push the narrative and visuals, as long as I can keep some cohesive elements; the color palette, textures, and camera settings go a long way here. Pushing a stuffed animal vibe accomplishes a few things here, I'm trying to focus on the concepts instead of the individuals characters, this way I get to exaggerate the materials to keep it visually engaging. For the story, the Good Shepherd isn't just going after a sheep, but he knows his sheep. I gave them individualized apartments and different colored wool to flesh out their personalities. I'm trying to subtly get at: that in life there's always going to be that other person that I think just doesn't get it, and how I should be responding to them. To some people, the outsider is a BLM protestor, or a right-wing news anchor, maybe a quiet experimental artist, or a travel influencer. That outsider "Lost Sheep" that I might think doesn't belong in my sphere, I'm called to love them as my neighbor too. I'm sure that sometimes, I can be that outsider in someone else's worldview. Not to be confused that every opinion is correct, but that every person is better off being shown love, removing division. Richard Dahlstrom of Bethany Greenlake had this great illustration (I'll have to animate it sometime) of a congregation that builds up walls around it, then throws theological grenades over it trying to build an "in" crowd, and punish an "out" crowd that they have somewhat created.

Process

I'm involved with every step of the production here. Starting with sketches, a rough outline, storyboards, and an anamatic to rough out the pacing scenes and movement in and between sceners. Then I move on to 3D modeling, texturing, and lighting in Cinema4D using Redshift. After that I animate and render out the 3D scenes before compositing and finishing up timing and audio in the Adobe Creative Suite. My tool of choice is Adobe After Effects.

I'll create a couple scenes at a time so I can take a break with some social posts.

Sometimes I'll receive suggestions in my social posts and I'll make adjustments. I love the collaboration, it's been a blast to add in small details.

Early Beginnings

I had earlier created a simple video on the parable of the Treasure Hidden in a Field, and I wanted to push everything further. I started with it's focus on textures and simple shapes and went from there. The story sequence is based off the parable itself in Luke 15.

Beginnings I then created a mood board to try and organize and remix ideas. Then a sequence from a bunch of sketches, so I could play with timing, and see what visuals work to draw the viewer into the narrative.

I'll keep updating this as I go. Thanks for reading! -Ben