ENCANTO
My primary contributions on Encanto were environmental look development for Antonio’s Room, Isabella’s Room, and various other misc. assets and smaller sets throughout the film.
Antonio’s Room
In Encanto, each child of the family Madrigal is gifted a magical bedroom that corresponds with their unique gift and personality. Antonio’s room was envisioned as a juxtaposition of a magical rain forest with elements of a typical bedroom, complete with every child’s dream of a treehouse, slide, and swinging bridge. The rainforests from the Choco region were the primary inspirations for Antonio’s room. There are many different types of rainforest in South America, but we wanted it to feel specific to that region - so we reviewed all of the vegetation that exists in these areas, and made sure we were be truthful to those biomes.
In Antonio’s room we ended up with 6 different species of flora, and over 30,000+ unique instance. We had 24 different species of trees, and roughly 10,000 placed with our procedural tool droplet throughout the environment.
I used the Disney proprietary software Bonsai to generate a handful of simple vegetation elements. Bonsai is a really powerful tool for creating vegetation with procedural rule sets using the language SeExpr. Once I created these bonsai elements, I then scattered these onto the geometry using our instancing software xgen.
Isabella’s Room - “What Else Can I Do?”
Walt Disney Animation Studios’ “Encanto” called for many dazzling musical numbers with special effects. Isabela’s song “What Else Can I Do?” was one of the most technically challenging. In this sequence, Isabela finds freedom from the pressure and constraints of society’s expectations, and lets her true self shine. Throughout this musical number, her environment represents her emotional transformation through the colorful, expressive, and hypnotizing flower patterns that appear on the walls of her bedroom. This effect required hundreds of thousands of flowers to change colors and move in kaleidoscopic patterns. I was responsible for handling the procedural geometry generation and look development of this effect for this musical sequence.
Project Credits:
Directed by
Jared Bush Byron Howard
Co-Directed by
Charise Castro Smith
Produced by
Yvett Merino, P.G.A.
Clark Spencer, P.G.A.
Screenplay by
Charise Castro Smith
Jared Bush
Story by
Jared Bush Byron Howard Charise Castro Smith Jason Hand Nancy Kruse Lin-Manuel Miranda
Executive Producer
Jennifer Lee
Associate Producer
Bradford Simonsen
Visual Effects Supervisor
Scott Kersavage
Heads of Story
Jason Handan Nancy Kruse
Production Designer
Ian Gooding
Associate Production Designer
Lorelay Bové
Art Director Characters
Bill Schwab
Art Directors Environments
Camille Andre Mehrdad Isvandi
Production Manager
Stephanie Hachem
Director of Cinematography Layout
Nathan Detroit Warner
Directors of Cinematography Lighting
Alessandro Jacomini Daniel Rice
Technical Supervisor
Thaddeus P. Miller
Heads of Characters
Michelle Lee Robinson Claudia Chung Sanii
Head of Technical Animation
Nicholas Burkard
Head of Environments
Jack Fulmer
Heads of Effects Animation
Erin V. Ramos David Hutchins Marlon West
Effects Supervisor
Christopher Hendryx
Character Modeling Supervisor
Sergi Caballer Garcia
Character Look Development Supervisor
Alexander Alvarado
Environment Modeling Supervisor
Luis Labrador
Environment Look Development
Supervisor Jay V. Jackson
Set Extension Supervisor
Suki Lee
Lighting Supervisors
Corey Butler Gregory Culprich Richard Gouge Richard E. Lehmann Amol Sathe Emily Tse
Associate Technical Supervisors
Neelima Karanam Nadim Sinno
Tactics Supervisor
Mitchell Counsell
Senior Production Supervisor
Charlyn Govi
Visual Development Additional Production Supervisors
Holly E. Bratton Julie Baner
Color & Lighting Lead
Dan Cooper
Costume Design Lead
Neysa Bové
Visual Development Artists
Manu Arenas William Mac George Iii Dave Goetz Jin Kim Jose Francisco Martinez Nicholas Orsi Meg Park Zac Retz Griselda Sastra Winata-Lemays Scott Watanabe David Womersley James Woods
Art Director Environments, Pre-Production
Matthias Lechner
Additional Visual Development
Paul Felix Brittney Lee
Production Assistants
Catherine Fearon Jasmin Atiles Erik Perez
ASSET PRODUCTION
Production Coordinators, Characters
Ashley Brooke Grisham Maggie Hughes
Production Coordinators, Environments
Tyler Sandifer Ellen Willis Holly Nellis
MODELING
Modeling Environment Lead
Chris Patrick O'Connell
Modelers
Sean Absher Chris Anderson Virgilio John Aquino Juan Pablo Chen Charles Cunningham-Scott Minh Renee Duong Dylan Ekren Leticia Gillett Ki Jong Hong Suzan Kim Jon Kim Krummel II Brandon Lawless Jonathan Lina Lena Loftis Zachary Natalie Petroceric Provan Liza Rhea James Schauf Chad Stubblefield Ryan Tottle Alexander Justin Whang
Additional Modeling
Kevin Hudson Samy Segura
LOOK DEVELOPMENT
Additional Character Look Development Supervisor
Michelle Lee Robinson
Look Development Artists
Nicole Alesian Butterfield Ramya Chidanand Colin Eckart Richard Fallat Andrew Finley Joshua Fry Benjamin Min Huang Chaiwon Kim Konrad Lightner Vicky Yu Tzu Linda Lipson Shutong Liu Eric S. McLean Nikki Mull Mitchell Allen Snary Pamela Spertus Jennifer Stratton Lance Summers Suan Tan Jose Luis "Weecho" Velasquez
Look Development Apprentices
Yolanda Ji Cheng
Logan Erdnerayah Lopez
Josephine Rivera
Set Extension Artists
Heather Abelseric Bouffard Alex Garcia Travis Mangaoang Michael Morris Adil Mustafabekov Jason Pethtel
Production Assistant, Characters
Hannah Bialosky
TECHNICAL DIRECTORS
Brett Achorn Antonella Albujameera Benson Allen Corcorran Annamarie Fuchs Andrew P. Gartner Christine Gerardi Mark Hammel Gabriela Hernandez Jerry Huynh William Huynh Jessica R. Jamieson Brandon Lee Jarratt Norman Moses Joseph Kimberly W. Keech Logan Kelly Justin Kern Sam Klockselena Kołodinsky Sylvia Kosowski Kaileen Kraemer Shannon Kraemer Laura Kwan Wayne Chun-Wei Lai Gabriel Chee-Yan Leung Harmony M. Li Gabriella Marinescu Megan E. Moore Teal Owyang Heather Pritchett Jared Reis Weber Nellie Robinson Krista Rogers Jeff Sadler Isadora Sanna Steven L. Seedar Archana Senthilkumar Serge Sretschinsky Abraham Franklin Tseng Nguyen Uong Rebecca Vallera-Thompson Shweta Viswanathan Emily Voirene Weng Jared Wright Michelle Wu Charlotte Zhu
Assistant Technical Directors
Katherine Boyd Jorge de Gouveia Laura Grondahl Jonathan Mannis Alina Ortega Jes Stec
TACTICS
Johann Francois Coetzee Far Jangtrakool Rajesh Sharma Justin Tennant
EFFECTS ANIMATION
Effects Leads
Dimitre Berberov Dale Mayeda Alex Moaveni Jacob Rice Francisco Rodriguez
Production Coordinator
Sean Creveling
Effects Animators
Robert Bennett Alireza Bidar Brett Boggs Parisa Bonakdar Marcella Brown Chris Carignan Deborah Carlson Paul Carman Ian J. Coony Peter De Mund James DeV. Mansfield Joël David Einhorn Jesse Erickson Ben Frost Stuart Griese Diego Grimaldi Christian A. Hatfield Chantal LeBlanc Lana Lederman Tim Molinder Mike Navarro Rattanin Sirinaru Emarn Kee Nam Suong Marie Chachat Tollec Le Joyce Tongs Scott Townsend Brian Jason Tran Cesar Velazquez Cong Wang Thom Wickes Bruce Wright Xiao Zhang
Effects Apprentices
Dylan Druktenis Mariam Elhag Abdel-Hamed Grace Hori Reaves Michelle Sharp
Production Assistant
Angel Ruvalcaba
LIGHTING
Additional Production Supervisor
Leah Latham
Character Lighting Lead
Katherine Ipjian
Environment Lighting Lead
Hans-Jörg E. Keim
Production Coordinators
Sasha Dmitrieva Shannon Henley Ellen Willis
Lighting Artists
Brian Adams Ayman Akosha LiJoan Anastassung Joon Bae Allan Bernardo Angel Camacho-Torres Alex Cazals Jeff Chung Justine Codron Moulayess Cheryl A. Davis Jon Davis Ryan Deyoung Kaori Doida Ale Drummond Sarah Dunton Shantergeni Katie A. Fico Logan Gloor Paula Goldstein Elise Hannon John Helton Austin Hirsch Robert Holder Benjamin Min Huang Iva Itchevska-Brain Jongo Walker Kennedy Mason Khoo Holly Kim-Angel Gina Warr Lawes Roger Lee Diana Jiang Levangie Angela McBride Robert L. Miles Dennis Müller Chris Nabholz Derek Nelson James Newland Alex Nijmeh Stephen Null Jorge Obregon Ash Ogasawara Amy Pfaffinger Winston Quitaso Lolun Riley Roman Robbins Alison Roberts Ian Ruhfassa Fonso Salcedo Lewis N. Siegel Mark Siegel Demorrius Sims Harmishtha Sohoni Ashley Souza Ka Yaw Tan Fatema Tarzi Don Taylor Mathew Thomas Ellen Trinhe Elizabeth Willy Jennifer Yu Farr Masha Zarnitsa Alina Zepeda
Lighting Apprentices
Kayleen Acosta Rodriguez Chrisy Baek Nicholas Balliett Taylor Dziuk Leon Hodge Kadie Jaffe
Additional Lighting
Mohit Kallianpur
Production Assistants
Ameera Wyanna Davis Ava Moss