Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs 2 Test #1

Cloudy 2 test from 2012.

It's best to focus on answering the big questions when you spend the time to do an animated piece. "Can this character carry our film?", "Does the design match the emotional tone of the film?", "How do we do this thing no one has done before?"

We had done previous tests with Barry and the Pickle before we made this test. Everyone was happy with the cute strawberry and the goofy pickle. The big question for the film was, "Will the predatory food be too scary / scary enough?" Finding that line was tricky, not just for this test but also for the film. From this and a subsequent test we discovered that it's the character's reactions to the threat that increase or decrease the scare. As long as we make Barry cute and Pickle goofy, we can get away with a lot.

This came together fairly quickly, four weeks in total, largely due to the fact that Barry and the Pickle were textured and rigged from a previous test. Omar Smith modeled all the characters and rigged the Cheespider, James Battersby textured the Cheespider, Chad Stewart animated and I rigged and textured Barry and Pickle and lit.