Monkey Thief - 2020

The film follows the story of a boy named Myles, a girl named Dolores, and a sock monkey named Henry. Myles faces the challenges of being bullied by the misunderstood Delores. With the help from Henry, the two kids learn from each other and what it means to be open to help and friendship.

Monkey Thief Trailer

Film Festivals

Monkey Thief is currently entered into many film festivals and has so far won two awards. I will update this section as needed.

About the Project

Monkey Thief is a short student animated film that was produced at the Savannah College of Art and Design. The project began production in the fall 2019 and wrapped in the spring of 2020. The team consisted of over 25 artists collaborating from a wide variety of departments. I had the pleasure of being one of the team’s Lighters and Compositors responsible for lighting, rendering, and compositing 15 shots while also assisting on an additional 5 shots.

My Contribution

Tools: Maya | Arnold | Nuke

To summarize my role on this film, I was responsible for developing and delivering the final looks for my assigned shots.

Lighting: As a lighter, I split the scenes up into different render layers to speed up rendering and in order to give me more control. For the outdoor sunset shots I typically had three layers: CHARACTER (sometimes multiple depending on the level of interaction), ENVIRONMENT, and SKY. Sometimes there was an addition of a DUST layer if that shot required the simulation. For the indoor morning shots on the bus, I had a few more layers: CHARACTER (sometimes multiple depending on the level of interaction), BUS ENVIRONMENT, GLASS REFLECTION, ATMOSPHERE, OUTSIDE ENVIRONMENT, and SKY. Everything was rendered with Arnold.

Compositing: Once I rendered out all of the layers, I began compositing to get approval of the overall look. After approval, I sent the lit scene and slap comp to the particle FX artist. With all of the components completed, all that was left was the final composite.