The ningyo: home grown vfx
Lynette Clee talks to Hollywood duo Miguel Ortega and Tran Ma to uncover how they created an impossibly perfect 30-minute movie on a bare-bones budget
Miguel Ortega and Tran Ma reveal how they created an impossibly perfect 30-minute movie on a bare-bones budget
When Elijah Wood tweeted a VICE article about The Ningyo in May, things got surreal for filmmakers Miguel Ortega and Tran Ma. With one article leading to another, festival submissions spiralling into nominations and awards, and meetings with big-shot producers developing into talks with every major studio in Hollywood, the future of this power couple – and The Ningyo tale – is as thrilling as it is merited.
The Ningyo is a 30-minute short film that was born as a Kickstarter project and nurtured through more than three years of dedicated research, painful lessons, loyal community support, and above all: authentic talent. While Ortega may have started out his early artistic endeavours by painting his ideas onto the streets of Miami, and Ma began her path by way of traditional art classes, both talents learned the art of the VFX industry at the Gnomon School of Visual Effects in Hollywood, California. “I went to Gnomon with a focus on creatures,” Ortega comments. “I knew I wanted to direct early on, but I needed to understand the entire process before I could take the leap.” Ma also went to Gnomon to learn 3D modelling, and has been following a successful career as a character artist, environment artist, and designer ever since.
While both Ortega and Ma are impeccably talented 3D artists, the true
“I knew I wanted to direct early on, but I needed to understand the entire process before I could take the leap” Miguel Ortega, Director
magic happens when this duo combine their design and storytelling skills. “[When] I was working for Phil Tippett, I felt I reached my VFX goals, and I was ready to jump ship,” Ortega mentions. While with Tippett, Ortega and Ma embraced the opportunity to work on their very first three-minute short film, The Green Ruby Pumpkin, with their goal being to learn all the tools used in a complete production – while hopefully landing a gig in commercials as a result. But the couple got even more than they could have expected: “[We signed] at Spy Films for commercial representation and [received] the interest of feature film agents and producers.”
This is not a story of being-in-the-rightplace-at-the-right-time. This is the story of a pair who have stayed true to their vision, followed their dreams, and have raised the indie bar to a level that is indistinguishable from Hollywood’s top studios. We find out more about how Ortega and Ma brought their Faustian tale to life, what hurdles they faced along the way, and what the future holds for the story of The Ningyo.
Making A Miracle
The Ningyo is something of a miracle, given its breathtaking quality, the budget, and size of the team. And while Ortega and Ma did around 80 percent of the asset work themselves, and 100 percent of the lighting, compositing, and rendering, they were not completely alone all of the time. “We had a lot of great people help us,” Ortega reveals. “Usually, they would come in, [create] a model, and then run for the hills, [but] we had a few that stuck around all the way through.” The biggest contributors were Chris Bostjanick, Bryan Wynia, and Alon Hellman. “We had a great crew,” Ortega continues. “Bryan Wynia designed a lot of the insects; Soheil Danesh designed the mammals; Yuo Tengara, Tran Ma and I did the rest of the creatures; and Nguyen Quoc Hieu did a lot of the mood art.” And the research was a job all in itself. “Everything had to be based on something real and be plausible,” Ortega stresses. “We didn’t want overly fantastic creatures; for example, the monks are based on Peruvian elongated skulls mixed with Tibetan kapala ceremonial skulls and Tibetan robes. Mixing real references makes things feel relatable, yet fresh.”
While it’s easy to look at successful Kickstarter projects and ponder where creators spend their funds, Ortega explains that “$81,000 was not what we had”. He adds: “Kickstarter takes ten percent, and then you need to fulfill the [backer rewards]. The closer number was $60,000 [and] that only covered the physical shoot: actors, food, costumes, insurance, and so on. All of our costumes were antique and authentic period clothing. The rest was cobbled together out of pocket – but the biggest expense for us was time. The commitment to the film made us turn down other opportunities and locked us down.”
Being a short film, things weren’t as compartmentalised as they would be on a big-budget movie. Ortega explains: “Pre-production and production were the same: if we needed a creature for a shot, then that was when we would figure out the design… Everything was a figure-itout-as-you-go kind of thing.” The hardest part was learning to do things they had no experience of, on the fly. “How do we do cloth simulations on 80 digital humans in a large CG room? How do we do bubbles? How do we do fur? These were all total unknowns for us!” Ortega adds.
One thing they excelled at, however, was creating thorough storyboards. “We get very detailed,” Ortega shares. “We photograph temp actors – using lenses we already own – so we know whatever we storyboard we will get a 1:1 match on. It’s not loose-and-pretty like Disney or Pixar boards, but they are more like what we will actually shoot. We then do rough 3D models
“everything had to be based on something plausible… mixing real references makes things relatable” Miguel Ortega, Director
for the sets and then trace it all to give it a uniform look.”
Their go-to software was a relatively common mix, as Ortega details: “We always use Maya as our hub, Mudbox for sculpting, Mari for texturing, V-ray for rendering, Nuke for compositing, and Chronosculpt for shot-modelling.” He adds: “I still think Mudbox has the best layer system for modelling. Autodesk needs to wake up and keep supporting this amazing program!” Ortega further explains that “V-ray was used for rendering because of its simplicity and speed – and [Chaos Group has] helped us in more ways than one! We love Chaos Group. Chronosculpt is [also] one of the most underrated and powerful tools out there; Newtek should be proud of this.”
Working full-time, every day for seven days a week over three years, Ortega and Ma took their responsibilities incredibly seriously. “We would usually put in 15 hours a day,” Ortega recalls. “We had [over] 1,000 Kickstarter backers that would lynch us if we didn’t deliver! We have never worked so hard for no money in our lives. Our savings are completely exhausted, and we are twoto-three months away from bust. The one “gig” that we did take was designing the film Krampus for Legendary Pictures. That definitely helped.”
THE Price OF AMBITION
For Ortega and Ma, shooting The Ningyo felt very much like “going to war”. Ortega comments: “Whenever we film, we dread it; it means renting cars, getting catering to appear on time, getting insurance in order, praying to god no one vanishes [or] bails – [otherwise] everything else collapses. These are the days we’d get home and drop like a brick, only to realise [that we needed]
to get back up and make sure that all the footage works.”
Since they often didn’t have access to locations for long, they used real locations for wide shots and CG for medium shots and close-ups. “Whenever we did use a real location we pre-visualised the entire sequence,” Ortega adds. “We used the Theta 360 camera to scout and to pre-viz. Each room would have a proper 360-degree dome, so the pre-viz felt like the actual set. We couldn’t afford [to shoot in] these places for more than a day!”
Additionally, the crafty couple turned their own home into a location, building – and destroying – several DIY sets while making the short. “Five sets were built in total,” Ortega confirms. “Again, this was a new area for us: we had to learn how to cut wood, build things 20-feet tall that wouldn’t fall or kill everyone, and install wooden floors and Victorian wallpaper… [There are] a ton of things we hope we never have to do again. Our home was wrecked.”
The pair believes the key to their film’s success was “mixing it up”. After shooting one scene as full live-action, the next would be all CG, and the next a mix of 80 percent real plus CG, and so on. “It keeps people constantly guessing!” Ortega exclaims. “If we could afford to do a set practically we would always choose that over CG.” One of their most ambitious shots was the lecture hall: a single shot featuring over 80 characters, all with dynamic hair, fog, and a live-action actor to boot. “The old man’s study [was also] madness,” Ortega inserts. “I think the render times were 20 hours a frame.” And there were a lot of redos as well, both to improve and to add new scenes to the story. Ortega recounts: “We redid every CG shot at least three times, if not more. We would do a whole sequence, move on to the next one, get better, and then redo the previous one. And if I wasn’t broke, there are still a few things I wish I could reshoot and clarify in the story.”
Unfortunately, post-production wasn’t any easier. “We [would] wake up and get right to work,” Ortega remembers. “Our studio has a 150-inch projector that allows us to see the edit as it would appear in a
theatre. If we are rendering, the heat the computers emit turns the house into an oven. [Meanwhile,] the sound of all the fans trying to cool our V-ray render farm sounds like an aircraft carrier!”
looking BEYOND THE ROMANCE
Working and living on savings and calling favours from friends and peers is no easy feat. “95 percent of volunteers will bail on a project,” Ortega estimates. “Work friends that tell you they will help you on your project won’t [be able to] – and it’s not because they aren’t good friends or people! When you get home exhausted, the last thing anyone wants to do is free work. [And it’s important not to] ask people to put in more work than you.”
Ortega and Ma learned many lessons throughout the making of The Ningyo, with the most crucial being “having a great team”. Ortega counsels: “You need a great manager, and you need a great agency. Fortunately, we have both now. The Ningyo has given us the opportunity to sign with CAA and Traverse
Media. CAA represents directors like Steven Spielberg and James Cameron. These guys keep the business side rolling and set up all the meetings with us and the studios. We’re very grateful to have this team.”
When launching a Kickstarter project, it’s important to realise that it’s “a full-time job for the duration of the campaign – and of course for the film itself”. Ortega and Ma both admit that they “bit off more than we [could] chew, no doubt, but we got through it.” And although they did experience some delays – mostly self-inflicted since they wanted to redo shots until they were satisfied – the end result is nothing short of a masterpiece. And for those that have been lucky enough to see the short at one of several private screenings around the world, Ortega gives away a little of what’s to come next: “In the future, our hero, Professor Marlowe, teams up with the Bikuni clan, the last descendants of the fabled Yao Bikuni. If we do move forward as a TV series, most likely this entire [first] episode would be reshot, and we would not see the ningyo so early on. We would love to show the development of the Carmagnolle suit – which is a real diving suit from 1887 – [as well as] the back story of Yao Bikuni, and the ningyo origin myth.”
While it’s too early for Ortega and Ma to announce exactly what they’re working on next, fans of the talented couple and their incredible work are clearly holding out for a larger series or a feature film. Ortega concludes: “The other day, I stumbled upon an interview I did after we finished our first short film, The Green Ruby Pumpkin.i was asked [if I could offer advice to other budding filmmakers] and my answer was: “Don’t bite off more than you can chew. Keep it simple.” The Green Ruby Pumpkin was three-minutes long; The Ningyo was 27. I wish I would have taken my own advice! [My] number-one advice is don’t bite off too much, [and] I really can’t state this enough! It looks romantic seeing all the finished artwork and hearing how we made this at home. It wasn’t. It was a living hell for three years. I’m glad we did it, but we will never [again] do something at this scale without a proper budget.”