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The "Secret Of The Sapphires"
is intended to be an original story featuring an industrial feudalistic society, within which evolving and appealing characters encounter a long-forgotten virtual reality device in their search for truth, trust and love. Using Boris FX, Boris Continuum, AE, Movie Flo, Morph, Elastic Reality & Lightwave, Kurt's goal is to utilize morphing, advanced compositing, and lighting/timing effects to give the characters subtle, realistic touches while eliminating the hundreds of drawings normally required for traditional cel-style animation.

In addition, Kurt wanted to integrate the animation with 3D backgrounds and effects in order to provide a richly rendered environment. Some of these backgrounds were enhanced using Boris Continuum filters, such as Clouds, Rain and Snow. Kurt also used Continuum's Sequencer, which allowed him to achieve some challenging and spectacular effects for

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Sapphires' characters. In one particular example (LOCKEDOUT image), Sequencer helped Kurt achieve the desired effect in 6 drawings, which would have taken 60-70 drawings if done traditionally.

The Interview
1) What was the motivation for Sapphire... what did you see that made you chase this creation?

Sapphire, short for Secret of the Sapphires, was motivated by many things, including Grimm and Anderson fairy tales, unusual animals like ferrets and otters, Celtic music, and high tech concepts such as energy manipulation within Sapphires, and virtual reality. I also wanted to focus on evolving adult characters, especially women characters; to give a young, anxious girl a chance to chase a desirable if reluctant guy through a challenging encounter with a rediscovered misunderstood technology, and

show them triumphing with truth, trust and love. That's the story core (begun in the early 1990's), but it has grown in other hopefully entertaining ways since then.

click here to read the rest of the story