Paradox Entertainment, LLC is currently in post-production of a CG short film entitled Alien Zupiter, which is about an earth astronaut who investigates an alien zoo only to find himself on the wrong side of the laser bars. This 3D science fiction/fantasy uses LightWave [8] to bring 12 characters and 3 environments to life in CG. We recently talked to Steve Williamson and Dwaine Vassell, co-founders of Paradox Entertainment, about their independent film project, and how LightWave helped them bring it to the screen.

Can you tell us a little about yourself and your history with 3D?
Steve:
I’m an entrepreneur who has a deep interest in media entertainment. As a lad, I’ve always been amused with art and business. The world of art has fascinated me with cartoons such as Tom & Jerry, Popeye, Smurfs, Transformers, G.I. Joe, Thundercats and the list goes on. I was first introduced to the 3D world when I laid eyes on Beast Wars. Honestly, I must admit when I saw this, I was not impressed. I was more of an old-school guy; I wanted to stay with my traditional hand-drawn animation. I wasn’t convinced until I saw the combination of traditional and 3D in Blue Submarine No.6. I found this to be more acceptable because it introduced me to 3D; I was able to see the difference between the two side by side. After this, my interest in 3D grew rapidly; I began to catch up on all I’d been missing.

The business world fascinated me with the organized corporate setup and the fast pace of the financial markets. Daily, I was glued to my television watching CNBC seeking to find out the latest on Fortune 500 companies and what they’re doing to stay ahead of the game and most importantly, keep their investors happy.

So with such a great interest in both art and business, I decided to pursue a career in both. That’s when Dwaine and I came together to form Paradox Entertainment, LLC.

Dwaine:
I'm a 26 year old computer animation director with high interest in computer graphics (CG) animation. When I was young I had always enjoyed stop-motion animation from great classics such as Clash of the Titans and Sinbad. I fell in love with CG when I was first introduced to the super surrealistic smooth metallic T-1000 CG character from Terminator 2. It blew my mind away to see such great visuals with stunning realism come to life and all completed by computer animation technology. In high school I took an AutoCAD course, where I designed many objects from as simple as a car tire to more complex geometry like a fully developed house. Working as a runner for a luxury condominium, I saved up enough money to purchase a CPU with limited graphic abilities and I practiced modeling and animation with Hash Animation Master and played with Bryce 3D. I continued to research and test different CG animation applications until I reached LightWave 6.0. I used a demo version and found that this powerful software is the ideal package I needed.

How were you first introduced to LightWave 3D?
Dwaine:
Steve and I had plans of doing a short film code-named Project DOS and we didn't know how to go about it. We didn't even know how the film was going to look. Being huge anime fans, we had seen Blue Submarine No. 6 and were highly impressed with the 2D and 3D composite scenes of the film. We quickly jumped onto the internet and did in-depth research on anime and CG animation. We saw this style as a cool and refreshing look for animation. Ever since the ballroom dance scene from Beauty and the Beast, that style of compositing quickly grabbed our attention. At first we wanted to do hand-drawn animation, but later realized that we didn't have sufficient talent. While researching, we found many online articles about LightWave and how many independent studios have been using this program for their projects. These articles impressed us so much that we went to NewTek’s website and found their online gallery to be most pleasing. It showed off everything from photorealistic renders to simple cel-shade renders. After gazing hours on the website we finally decided to try out LightWave 6.0 as a demo.

What feature of LightWave do you like the most?
Dwaine:
My favorite feature is hard to decide among many; but since I must choose one, I’ll choose the multi modeling tools that are available within the Modeler interface. Every time I build a new model I'm faced with new challenges and LightWave is able to meet those challenges every time. We took advantage of Modeler and used it to create high quality models in ultra fast completion. Modeler's tool set allows for fast modeling and outputs great quality.

Are there any plug-ins you use on a regular basis?
We generally used G2 and Saslite for major portions of Alien Zupiter. G2 gave us way more control of light options than we would have thought possible. It helped us modify a lot of scenes that can mimic radiosity quality. I really love the real-time rendering options. G2 is easy to use and fast. I think with out it lighting techniques would be more complex. Saslite is another plug-in we used for the main character. We used it for the hair and while it had limited options, the capabilities were as much as we needed for this project. I really want to get my hands on the full version of Sasquatch and play with those powerful options.

What are your primary roles at Paradox Entertainment, and what do they entail?
Steve:
Dwaine and I are founders and Co-owners of Paradox Entertainment, LLC. I serve as the President, whose duty is to oversee all administrative and creative functions of this growing media company. Dwaine serves as Vice President, whose duties are to assist me administratively and oversee the direction of our films.

Is Alien Zupiter your first short film?
Yes, Alien Zupiter is our first CG short film, which we spent over a year and 6 months to complete.

Where did the idea for Alien Zupiter come from?
Steve:
We previously had an action-packed martial arts script called Project Reiko, which is based on a female ninja who ventures into feudal Japan. The story required extreme graphics and special effects to complete its entire creation, but due to the lack of hardware technology we couldn't meet the high demands for this production. We attended the 2004 Sundance Film Festival and were really inspired by the content that was shown there, sitting in a hotel, discouraged that the Project Reiko script seemed way too advanced for our time. Our writer, Andrew Steiger suggested doing something really simple: cute funny creatures, and white backgrounds. He wrote a short script about a robot zookeeper on another planet, interacting with ignorant alien zoo visitors. It was based on his work experiences in the zoo/museum field. Problem was: it wasn't a funny script! Then a few months later we came up with the idea of changing it to a human astronaut and alien animals. That gave humor to the idea and jump-started other ideas for Alien Zupiter.

Have there been any particular difficulties you've faced during the production cycle?
Considering Alien Zupiter as our first production, we have faced many difficulties from the script to the editing phase. Our biggest problem was with the computer hardware. Alien Zupiter has a chase scene which required a lot of the characters to be modified during the animation. Our computer at the time was too slow to handle the data that LightWave was processing. In this event, the system had crashed causing our scenes files to malfunction and ultimately forcing us to recreate those scenes over again. So we decided to obtain a more powerful workstation using the ATI's Fire GL X2 256 MB graphics card. To our advantage this powerful system took LightWave v8.0 to another level. Everything was faster, smoother and reliable. A good powerful computer system makes animation and production a whole lot easier.

What role has LightWave 3D played in creating Alien Zupiter?
LightWave played a BIG role in creating Alien Zupiter. It was the only 3D program we used to create all the models. We used it for modeling, animation, editing and special effects. LightWave is such a great program, I can go on and on about this program. The rendering is fast. Modeler is great. The Layout is awesome, but with so many tools and options can be a little confusing at times. Overall, LightWave was the key player in production of Alien Zupiter.

When do you expect to complete production of Alien Zupiter?
Alien Zupiter will debut on January 2006 as our first short independent CG film. We have been working extremely hard, day and night in preparations for this due date. The quality of this film is definitely worth the wait.

How will Alien Zupiter be released to the public?
Paradox Entertainment, LLC has an agreement with a company in LA to present our projects to studios. It's their duty to spark interest among studio executives. As a contingency plan, we'll submit to film festivals.

Can you offer any advice for animators trying to produce their own independent project?
Do a lot of research before taking on any film production. Plan everything out for your project from a budget in pre-production to the final edit in post-production. Carefully study film, animation, sound, photography, screenplays, computer animation, computer technology, software, the business of film and how to go about it. I highly recommend using LightWave for all 3D computer animation needs. The program is so easy to learn, yet so powerful with a very fast rendering engine and a powerful modeling tool set.

What's next for Paradox Entertainment?
Paradox Entertainment, LLC has major expansion plans in various forms of media for 2005 and beyond. Currently, we’re in the early developmental stages of a feature script for Alien Zupiter and a top secret Super Hero drama in high quality CG that will blow your mind. Alien Zupiter: The Movie, will journey into a super psychedelic surrealistic world filled with colorful characters that will grab your attention to this altered hilarious comedy adventure. Paradox Entertainment, LLC is also in progress on a project for providing CG content to the cell phone platform. The content provided will vary from still images to animated objects. This will be downloadable in the near future from a cell content website. Paradox Entertainment, LLC is working with another company to develop an interactive educational game called Investi-Gator. The game rallies around four warm, colorful characters as they venture into a world of fun. The object of Investi-Gator is to solve amusing puzzles with features that’ll include online multi-player gaming.

Thanks very much for taking the time to talk to us, Steve and Dwaine!

To learn more about Paradox Entertainment, LLC and Alien Zupiter, please visit their official sites at www.paradoxentertainment.com and www.alienzupiter.com.