One Pixel Brush founder, award-winning concept artist Shaddy Safadi, talks about his Annecy Cristal-winning 3DCG short comedy, years in the making, which he wrote, directed, voiced all characters for, and self-financed, that’s set in 400 AD, when decency, decorum and cleanliness were not high priorities.
They are three barbarians, traveling together and fighting for survival at the height of tension between the unruly Barbarian Clans and the imperialist Roman empire. Yet, the greatest thing they fear is intellectual conversation.
Christo the Civilized Barbarian is an independent, 3DCG short film created by Shaddy Safadi, creative director and founder of One Pixel Brush. The studio, which specializes in concept art, Unreal Engine, as well as virtual filmmaking and IP development services, released the short on YouTube seven months ago and, more recently, became the winner of the Annecy Cristal Award for best TV Series. Plans are in the works for additional episodes.
Set in 400 AD, the film follows Christo, a civilized barbarian, who consistently tries and fails to bring Roman-esque decency, decorum, and cleanliness to his dim-witted yet affable barbarian friends. The animated comedy deals in purposely low stakes and 21st century grievances against the backdrop of a high-stakes ancient world. Safadi directs and voices all the characters.
Check out the short: Christo Hunting Party / Episode 01
And take a look at the short made for Annecy: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/ADwUV5U291E
With 15 years of industry experience and two Art Directors Guild Awards under his belt, Safadi has worked with some of the most talented developers in the world on projects such as Uncharted, BioShock Infinite, The Last of Us, Call of Duty, and dozens of other AAA games. And now he’s using his creative chops to bring to life the funny, beautiful stories he no longer needs to wait to tell. And he hopes his endeavors will encourage other independent filmmakers to follow suit. AWN chatted with Safadi about the origins of Christo, the future of animation development and the virtual tools that give storytellers the invaluable resources to make their own films.
Victoria Davis: Tell me about the origins of One Pixel Brush. How did the studio start?
Shaddy Safadi: I used to work at Naughty Dog, but I quit 12 years ago. Not for any big reason, I just felt like I’d made a few really successful games and didn’t see where I could go from there. So, I started One Pixel Brush. But I didn’t set out to start a company. It was originally just me and one other person who I would give the freelance work to. But slowly, over time, the reputation started to build, and it grew into a business. Then, Naughty Dog hired us to work on concept art for The Last of Us Part 2. That was probably our biggest project. We worked on that for four years doing 800 or 900 concepts.
Since then, we've provided high-end concept art for games like Call of Duty, Battlestar Galactica, and others. And now, of course, there’s Christo.
VD: What were your main goals for the studio as it grew? What mark did you want to make on the animation industry?
SS: The goal initially was to just do concept art. I didn’t know anything about animation then. But the idea for Christo was in my head right when I initially quit Naughty Dog. So eventually, the idea was to make a kid’s animated film, because that’s what the market wanted.
I took a screenwriting workshop at UCLA, and I remember my screenwriting teacher said, ‘You quit your job to become a script writer? That’s a bad idea.’ But I laughed because I knew I had some backup with my company, and I did have some extra time to learn the craft of writing. I wrote a treatment for Christo with Bruce Straley, who led development on The Last of Us and Uncharted 4: A Thief's End. I would beat out a story, he would critique it, and we would take it all down and build it back up. We did that for over a year or so. Bruce is one of the best writers in games so working with him on this was life-changing.
I knew some people who knew people at the big studios and ended up having some pitches with Netflix, Illumination, DreamWorks, and others. And they liked Christo, but either didn’t have a spot for it or felt some characters weren’t well enough fleshed out. After many years of trying with studios, I finally decided to go for it myself, using my own funds.
VD: You said you had the idea for Christo back when you first left Naughty Dog. How long had the idea been germinating before that?
SS: It was an idea I had from when I was in high school. I liked the idea of poking fun at the cartoonish masculinity that you see in video games where characters' swords get bigger and bigger. Initially, Christo was an effeminate barbarian playing on a lot of tropes that were fine in the early 2000s but don’t really play the same today. I’m also older and more mature.
There were a lot of ideas where he had a giant sword, which was a metaphor for his penis, but he didn’t like fighting because he didn’t want to get dirty or muddy. So, if people tried to fight him, he’d just dodge them and toss them into this giant sword he had on a wheel. It was all just a one-off, good gameplay joke, but then it evolved into this four-quadrant animated comedy, with the main arc centered around a Roman girl who the barbarians captured and were going to sacrifice. Christo was not having it, and he rescued her with the promise that he would take her to Rome. But when Christo gets to Rome, he realizes there’s incivility there too, with slavery and gladiator fights.
When we decided to self-fund the project, it became a short about Christo trying to bring civility to his very uncivilized brethren.
VD: How long did it take the team to make Episode 1?
SS: It took around a year and a half. It probably could have been done in three or four months but there was a lot of uncertainty, a lot of figuring out the process, investigating a ton of tools and different motion-capture solutions. Once we figured everything out, the process was pretty straight forward.
VD: What were the tools and software you used to make this first episode?
SS: We started with a character base from a Character Creator package in iClone and then an artist refined it using ZBrush. We used Motion Live in iClone to map and capture my face speaking, which is then transferred onto the character. It's just me at a desk acting out all the characters, which was a little difficult logistics-wise. But it worked well for what I needed.
For the body movements, we started using Rokoko for the character motion but later moved onto Quick Magic, which now you can use with your phone and without a mo-cap suit. I'd do the face capture first, which links up to my voice, and then would act out the character movements separately, which was tricky having to do one character at a time, and ensure everything synced up. Afterward, everything from environments and models to hair and effects were refined in Blender.
All of these methods were great for what I wanted to achieve with Christo, which was to be happy enough with the animation and get the story out there as fast as we could. I just wanted to finally release it into the world. The tools available now make animation a lot more democratized. Anyone with a story and animation skills can do it. But it still requires some funding behind it.
VD: Budget is usually one of the biggest hurdles in any production. How did you guys manage to make this short on such a small budget?
SS: We made this for less than $10,000 a minute, but we could do it for around half of that now. And I know that’s still not exactly cheap. I wasn’t getting paid to make this, so we picked a process that was going to be cost effective. Studio-level quality animation wasn't top priority, but getting the story out into the world was. Flow, in my opinion, is one example of this where it was a $4 million movie that won going up against $100 million movies. It may not have looked as high quality as its competitors, but it looked good enough and the story was solid. It was an incredible film considering how cheaply it was done.
No one really talks about this, but on a typical project, you can get it to 85% of the way with a 50th of the budget and then spend the rest on finessing the project. So, Christo may not have that high-end and high-spend look that big studio animation creates, but I didn't need anyone's permission to finish Christo. I got to trust my own judgement. And that was the real power.
Some may say the animation isn't that great, that the comedy isn’t as punchy, and that's fine, but I got to tell my story in a fun way and that's what mattered most to me. And we just won at Annecy, one of the most prestigious animation festivals in the world. So, I’m 100 percent confident that our process is good enough. Plus, the point of filmmaking is always the story and not how great the background rocks or trees look.
VD: What are your hopes for Christo? Any plans for more projects?
SS: I do have a vision board and it’s all laid out like a graph. And my second-to-last goal was to win at major animation festivals, which has now been accomplished. So, the last goal is to have Christo appear on a major streaming platform like Amazon, Netflix, HBO, or Disney+. I'd also hope Christo, and the process of us making Christo, inspires others to get their stories out there. Another animated project we're currently working on, called Diaboli, is made with Unreal Engine 5 and is different from Christo in storyline. It's a dark tale about war and religion, set in 1280 AD. But, with both stories, we’re keeping up with new tech as it comes out.
The most important take-away from this is we now have ways for people to pursue their dreams without waiting for someone to give them permission. Just because studios aren't giving you the time of day, or you're feeling stuck in a rut, there are other options. So, find them and go tell your stories!
Victoria Davis is a full-time, freelance journalist and part-time Otaku with an affinity for all things anime. She's reported on numerous stories from activist news to entertainment. Find more about her work at victoriadavisdepiction.com.
