Dear Friends of Summer Breeze,

First of all, thanks to so many of you, old and new friends, who stopped by our site and emailed us regarding the film. It’s been a year since our last update, we are still working full-time on Summer Breeze in NYC. Here is a brief overview of the passed year:

DELAYS ON THE PROJECT

Summer Breeze is a much bigger project than we understood when we started it. Both artistically and technically it proved frustratingly harder than we had ever imagined.

With the kind understanding from all of our supporters, we are able to continue the production and have the chance to bring it to a successful completion the way it was originally envisioned.

Summer Breeze is scheduled now to be completed by early 2005.

IN PRODUCTION

Three main characters, Sara, Flora and Ed were completed. And three secondary characters, Nino, Bruno and Fiona were added to the film. All of them now have skin textures, full body rig and facial set-up.

Originally we planed to use a simple color for the skin shader. However, the moment we put the fully-textured clothes on our characters, they simply demanded that the same treatment will be given to their skin.

With the help of Mark Piretti from Blue Sky Studios we completed in May the facial expressions set-up. Yaron set up the rig, ShengFang worked on the blend shapes and Wei-Ching did the test animations. Thank you Mark for your time.

Another great help, and not a moment too soon, was Jason Osipa’s great new facial rigging book "Stop Staring". Thank you Jason for putting your book on the shelves just on time!

Our hero car, a Karmann Ghia, is now modeled. Rigged for driving any irregular surface, it is ready to climb the steep streets of Sara’s village.

Work on the village continues, with many more corners modeled and textured. Tami expended her part in the 3D production and designed one of the sets. Ran Sariel worked from Israel on some of the modeling.

Rick Hankins, a physics graduate student from The University of Texas at Austin helped us since last September to work on some dynamic systems remotely.

Alen Lai, our old SVA classmate and a very dear friend, spent a lot of his summer weekends with us, helping with production management, matte painting and lighting.

Charlotte Griffin, our busy choreographer, continued working with us from North Carolina. She recorded some of the motion references and brought them with her to us in May. During her one-week stay in NYC, she performed more motion and worked side by side with Yaron on the animation.

THE INTERNSHIP PROGRAM

Our on-going internship program is a great help to the film production. Annie Chen from SVA worked on cloth simulation and animation since last May, Wei-Ching Yu, just graduated from SVA joined us this February on animation, and Jackie Liao also from SVA worked on the vegetation system in May and June.

KNOWLEDGE SHARING

In March, Professor Steve Rittler of William Paterson University invited us to share our Summer Breeze production experience with his 3D Animation and Storyboarding class students.

In the semester of Spring 2004, Yaron gave a class titled “Advanced Modeling and Rigging Concepts” at the MFA Computer Art Department at the School of Visual Arts, New York.

VOICES

In June, we sent out a “needed" ad for voice talent and got lots of responses. We had the voices recorded at Splash Studios, New York. Our voice talents are Antoinette LaVecchia, Leide Porcu and Jon Morgenthau. Peter Levin from Splash Studios also performed for us in case we need some variations.

SIGGRAPH 2004

Tami, who moved back to Israel this March, is still an active member of the Summer Breeze team, working with us part-time across the Atlantic. She shared new production materials with our supporters at this year’s SIGGRAPH.

At SIGGRAPH, a new supporter was added. Next Limit Technologies committed their RealFlow Software and their support to Summer Breeze.

A STUDIO ON THE MOVE

In July, we were forced to launch a search for a new space for our studio after our landlord informed us that the whole building is to be cleared by the end of August for renovation. Luckily we found a nice place just 5 blocks away from where we are right now and we are moving next week. Our phone number will remain the same.

UNCONDITIONAL SUPPORT FROM FAMILY

Our extended commitment to Summer Breeze would not have been possible without our families’ unconditional love and support. It is hard to find the words suitable to express how grateful we are.

Strengthened by the continuous encouragement from our supporters and friends, Summer Breeze continues in NYC.

yours,

ShengFang and Yaron