By Heather Jacobs
Michael Ferraro and Janine Cirincione, co-founders of New York-based PossibleWorlds, have developed animation software which allows users to scan traditional animation materials into a computer, thereby creating a database where characters can be manipulated to perform as if they are live-action actors. Called Kabuki, after the traditional Japanese theater drama that utilizes highly stylized singing and dancing, the software currently runs off a Macintosh platform; SGI and Windows-based systems are set to be beta-tested internally. Applications for the software include commercials, promos and broadcast projects.
According to its developers, Kabuki combines the look and feel of hand-painted 2-D cel animation with the reliability, flexibility and spontaneity of puppetry. The process works by taking traditional animation cels or digitally prepared CGI assets and assembling them into a performable database—a kind of digital actor. Each element—eye blinks, hand movements, smiles or frowns of the digital actor—becomes a performable gesture. Cartoon characters are then made to move, gesture, and speak as if they were live performers. Lip-synch is driven by a real-time, voice-activated, phoneme-recognition system. Once a character/puppet is built, live performances are simply laid to tape. One of the biggest advantages is the amount of time saved, explains Ferraro. "Kabuki eliminates the lengthy delays between script and animation which, for a television series, could be as long as twelve weeks, plus four weeks of revisions," he notes. "Once details of a character are in the system, we can create low-cost, high-speed animation with the look and feel of a traditional cartoon."
Ferraro, creative director/chief technology officer, was one of six founding members of computer animation company Blue Sky Studios, White Plains, N.Y. Cirincione, president/director of content development at PossibleWorlds, comes to the commercial and broadcast arena from a more traditional training ground: fine arts
Ferraro has worked in computer animation and image production for the past 20 years. He graduated with a bachelor of fine arts from New York’s Syracuse University, followed by a master of fine arts from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. He then joined engineering company Sperry (which has since become a part of Blue Bell, Penn.-headquartered Unisys), where he worked on upgrading one of the first commercial flight simulators ever built.
In 1981 Ferraro joined the now defunct production and software company MAGI, Elmsford, N.Y., as senior research analyst, later becoming director of creative research. While there he was part of the research and development team working on Disney Studio’s Tron, the first feature film to incorporate CG graphics. Steven Lisberger directed the film, which was released in ’82. In ’83 Ferraro made the transition to production from research when MAGI spun off a separate company: the now defunct SynthaVision.
In June ’86, along with some other SynthaVision alumni, Ferraro co-founded CGI (Conceptual Graphics Images), which later became Blue Sky, and then Blue Sky Studios. Those other founding partners were Chris Wedge, Eugene Troubetzkoy, Carl Ludwig, Alison Brown and David Brown. As the system architect, Ferraro was heavily involved in designing and building the firm’s proprietary CGI Studio, which simulates the way light behaves on objects and surfaces in a natural environment, through the use of geometric modeling. (Blue Sky became a wholly owned unit of Fox Filmed Entertainment in ’99, and has since pulled out of commercialmaking; the firm now focuses solely on feature film work, including the upcoming Ice Age, directed by Wedge.)
Cirincione has over 10 years’ experience as a creative director and content producer. Having studied arts and literature at the Sorbonne in Paris, Cirincione returned to the U.S., where she received her masters in French at Hunter College, New York. She then worked in various roles within the arts field, undertaking stints in publishing and as a curator in galleries. Positions included acquisitions editor at Art Resource, New York, director of archives and public information at Pace Gallery, New York, and director of Artline, the multimedia contemporary art site on the Microsoft Network. In ’92, she focused her attention on organizing the exhibition "Through the Looking Glass: Artists’ First Encounters with Virtual Reality," which combined art and technology. This is where Ferraro and Cirincione first became acquainted.
"We met through coincidence socially and realized we had a lot in common in terms of our art backgrounds and our interest in technology and the particular things possible with interactivity," explains Ferraro. "Because neither of us had seen things that were particularly interesting, we felt that represented a real opportunity, and we started creating artworks together."
Ferraro left Blue Sky in ’93, and he and Cirincione started PossibleWorlds in ’96, but had been working together informally since ’93, creating such artworks as multimedia installations. They have exhibited these installations at galleries in Macao, Copenhagen and New York, and in ’93-’94 were awarded residency at the Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus, Ohio, returning there in ’98 for another interactive art exhibition. Most recently, the duo has used Kabuki for a multimedia art project called "RL."
While making the gallery rounds, PossibleWorlds simultaneously pursued more lucrative commercial projects, such as designing a multi-user virtual reality attraction that allowed 40 players to interact with the 3-D CG environment for the Parque Expo in Lisbon, Portugal. Ferraro and Cirincione also provided creative direction for the launch of a 24/7 streaming music video Web site called sputnik7.
Spot Ambitions
In ’98 the team started working with MTV Animation, New York, on a project that required the popular cartoon characters Beavis and Butthead to appear live during the telecast of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, held annually in New York City. This became the starting point for the more aggressive development of the animation technique now known as Kabuki. A prototype of Kabuki had been developed just prior to this project and the software has been in further development and tests since then. From there, the duo used the technique on other projects for MTV, most notably on a daily animated TV series called Station Zero, which premiered in March ’99. Next, Ferraro and Cirincione worked on Noggin’s Phred on Your Head, which aired in July ’99—only seven weeks after initial discussions took place. PossibleWorlds also helped develop a pilot for Nickelodeon (which wasn’t green-lighted) and is currently working on a show that is in development for Warner Bros.
The first entry of Kabuki into advertising was to turn Jeeves, the obliging butler on the Ask Jeeves Web portal, into a "live" animated character who can interact in real time with human actors. This project was done through San Francisco-based animation studio Wild Brain. There is talk of using the animated Jeeves in a series of commercials, but this has not happened yet.
PossibleWorlds is now seeking a more significant share of spot business, and is currently negotiating representation. "We are starting to make these connections and beginning to get people thinking of the broader issues of interactive marketing, and how you can leverage a creative property, character, artwork or design across a range of media. There’s a lot of applications [for Kabuki]—ranging from broadcast commercials through to in-store promotions and live appearances," says Ferraro. "I think there is a really wonderful opportunity for advertising and marketing companies to leverage this technique to cut their costs and gain interesting ways of marketing interactively."
Ferraro and Cirincione are still in the process of deciding whether to sell their software. "The way we are working is to place licenses with large entertainment companies, so we can continue to refine and develop the tool on real productions, says Ferraro. "And once we have the software to a mature level, we will begin to think about how we would offer the software for commercial sale." Kabuki works fluidly with Adobe packages and is currently being tested with Flash.
There is some interest in working on features, but the focus for now is on advertising and broadcast. Cirincione explains that a broadcast project that’s a kind of "reality TV meets animation," whereby individuals are put into real-life situations and interact with animated characters, is currently in development.
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