A Santa fly-by at radio city music hall: Kleiser-Walczak's opening sequence for radio city's live show is 3D animation — projected in 3D — that imparts the thrill of a ride film - It's Always Something - Brief Article

NEWYORK--This is Manhattan like you've never seen it. The streets look clean and uncluttered under a dusting of new fallen snow that glows with a frosty blue hue. And there's a kind of hush--the lights of the city's imposing buildings are dimmed. Until this big fat guy in a red suit flies up 5th Avenue in a sleigh, magically re-igniting the Big Apple as his eight reindeer pull him forward on a wild aerial ride.

But "Santa Lights Up New York," Kleiser-Walczak's recent work for Radio City Music Hall's Christmas Spectacular, is not a "ride film" per se. Rather; the K-W team brought their prodigious ride film experience (they did the Spider-Man 3D ride film at MGM in Orlando, for instance) to bear for a rollicking short film meant to excite the hordes that have been coming to Radio City this season to see a live Santa's onstage antics. Radio City's seats, of course, are stationary and the 30-person crew at digital effects and animation studio Kleiser-Walczak (www.kwcc.com), based out of their MASS MoCA facility in North Adams, Mass., devised something even better for the thousands that have come each day.

Attendees wore polarized 3D glasses during Santa's two-minute trip across Radio City's 70-foot screen. The crowd reacts immediately to the looming 3D Christmas ornaments that first appear onscreen, then applauds as wrapped 3D presents come tumbling toward them. Then there's a real sense of motion -- careening through the sky and between the 3D modeled buildings that depict Manhattan's canyons -- that's provided by something new, a "bungee-cam."

K-W's bungee-cam effect has the viewer follow Santa's sleigh from a slight distance -- much like towing a water-skier. The sense of distance changes, growing farther from or closer to Santa.

Everything -- buildings, churches, stores, even Central Park -- lights up magically as Santa flies by. Santa first swoops down toward and under the Washington Square arch and heads north. Soon he's veering around the roof of Madison Square Garden (Radio City's owner) and 3D logos depicting the Garden's many offerings, including the NY Knicks and Rangers, bob into view. After that message from the sponsor, the sleigh heads east, magically bringing the Empire State Building to life in hues of red, green and white and decorating its spire with a tinsel garland. The Public Library's famous lion statues come to life as Santa flies by -- they rise to catch Christmas wreaths around their necks that Santa laughingly tosses their way. Broadway and the Toys 'R' Us store (which was not yet completed when K-W performed their construction) burst into a holiday glow and Santa even lights the Rockefeller Center skating rink and its famous tree, scaling a 3D star that lands atop the giant pine. After lighting up some more of Midtown, the sleigh comes in for a soft landing at Radio City itself and Santa hustles in through the stage door, an instant before the live actor who portrays Santa appears on the stage.

THE ANIMATION

The animation job, which was rendered twice from two different perspectives (one for each eye) at 2048-by-898 resolution for a film finish, is almost all Alias/Wavefront Maya, says K-W namesake Diana Walczak. She co-directed the piece with partner Jeff Kleiser. Walczak herself sculpted the Santa character in SensAble Technologies' FreeForm software, and Nothing Real's Shake helped accomplish the compositing. The variety of workstations included SGI, Dell, Hewlett Packard, IBM and Apple, and the job was rendered in multiple 32-processor Linux racks.

Given the theatrical splendor of the venerable Radio City show, there's poetic justice in the fact that Santa Lights Up New York's producer, Molly Windover, has a degree in theater design. In fact, Windover found that Maya enables digital artists to accomplish the virtual carpentry, painting and lighting chores in ways that were familiar to her practical roots. "There's absolutely no difference in the production scheme," she says, "it's absolutely the same workflow except they're all sitting in front of monitors."

THE MODELS

Radio City gave K-W a little over nine months to produce the whole thing -- including a convincing rendition of Manhattan. Building buildings was one of Windover's big challenges. His team wound up building over 7,000 of their own models, in varying degrees of complexity and accuracy.

One aspect that required intense scrutiny, Walczak says, was how and when the animation team should transition from the less detailed renderings of recognizable buildings to the more highly detailed versions -- without making it seem that the buildings would flash from plain to fancy. Another feature Walczak concentrated on was lighting the streets of Manhattan. The crew worked for a subtle, blue/yellow balance to suggest a small storybook town under snowfall and lit by twilight.

The project, she points out, was never meant to appear "totally photoreal." In Santa's case, Walczak sculpted him (digitally) with a "healthy, cute, storybook look" that suits his role and matches up well with the jolly old elf who eventually takes the stage live.

Creating Santa's "rig," including sleigh, reins and reindeer, was a big challenge, too, Windover says. The eight reindeer's fur was created by Leonardo Quiles with a realistic, complex shader that looks like fur, but is not a "fur" program. And the reindeer work at three different levels of intensity determined and automated by Mark Therrell: a gallop, a trot and walking speed.

Another important aspect of the animated presentation is sadly conspicuous by its absence. "The Twin Towers were a big part of the opening of the film, "Windover says, and Santa flew by K-W's Statue of Liberty with the Towers in the background, and then made a dramatic roller-coaster pass up and down the Towers. Oddly although K-W often produces their work in nonlinear fashion, the team actually had the opening Twin Towers sequence finished and filmed out for a September 12th client preview. But now, Windover says, with a renewed contract, K-W will produce a version for 2002 that opens with the Brooklyn Bridge (proving that the bridge can in fact be sold).

Diana Walczak sees more to come from the Santa work and Kleiser-Walczak's recent ambitious ride films for Busch Gardens, MGM and others. She and Kleiser were working Hollywood recently (where K-W has offices) pitching new projects, including something new -- a full length feature film.

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