As promised in the last post, here’s a one-on-one with the director and creator of “What’s up?“, Meruan Salim.

1. Where did you get the original idea for the film?

Years and years ago, after seeing Jan Pinkava’s “Geri’s Game” I wanted to create something as simple and brilliant.
I thought of a short film about all the garbage and trash we humans make, so I got the general idea for “What’s up?”. It took me years until I actually got it written, but the idea had dwelled in my mind ever since – well with about a thousand other stories, but that’s another tale…

2. Is there a part of yourself in the protagonist Huuhaa?

Of course there is, I think whenever a storyteller creates a protagonist for a story it’s bound to have something of the writer in him/her. What that something is… well, I wouldn’t want to say anything negative, but I’m sad to say that that might be the case, since spontanity plays a negative part in this story

3. Why is he called Huuhaa?

Huuhaa is a word in finnish for a person who is all over the place, doing a lot of stuff (sloppily) all at the same time, not noticing the surrounding world at all. In other words the name tells us a lot about humanity, well at least how I see it.

4. What have you got done so far?

The script and storyboards along with the colorscripts are ready, as are the character designs. The character modeling and rigging are almost ready, but still need a couple of finishing touches. At the moment I’ve been working with the team to get the perfect look for the location, so we’ll be able to start on the 1st draft of the layout soon!

5. What has been the most exciting part of the development & preproduction processes?

Designing the characters and the location with all of the other members of our little team has been elevating and a lot of fun! But just the fact that something of my own is being created for real… I mean for real!!

6. What do you expect from the production process? What will be easy and what will be difficult?

The production so far has been going brilliantly and smoothly thanks to all the great people I’m surrounded by. Because of the shortness and simplicity of this story I hope it will keep it’s good momentum to the very end. At the moment we also have time on our side, which hopefully will cover for the lack of money we have My biggest fear for difficulty is at the very end, in compositing. To actually get the right look for the film.

7. Are there going to be new areas of expertise that you need to educate yourself in in order to make this film succeed?

There’s always room for educating yourself and for me this film is a major educating process. Not only is it the first “real” film I’ve directed, it’s also a real chance to show the quality of finnish 3D animation, so I’ve been reading books on everything from directing to lightning and layout to animation. Well and when I can’t be bothered with books, there’s always room to watch some new films, short and feature length.

8. How have you been preparing for your first time as a director?

I’ve been going to the gym and jogging in the mornings… hah hah… just kidding! But like I said studying books and watching films. I actually just saw a really interesting documentary on good old Alfred Hitchcock and his films, brilliant! So generally I’ve been trying to digest as much info on directing a possible.

9. What tips could you give to aspiring directors at this point, regarding any aspect of short film making?

What worked for me in animation, is working in directing – keep it simple! Even if the story is complicated, try to keep it simple for as long as you can. If you’re making a short film, remember to keep it short! So basically when you get a great idea, deliver it on paper and make it happen.

If you have any questions to Meruan, go ahead and post them in the comments!

To start off, let me give you a little back-story. My name is Nick and I’m the producer of the film. While I was working as a production manager on the 3D feature film Niko and the Way to the Stars at Anima Vitae studios a studio animator, Meruan Salim, approached me with an idea for an animated short. I liked the idea and his enthusiasm, and soon we we’re planning how to go about financing and producing the film.

This was way back in April 2008. After finishing my job on Niko I continued to work as a freelancer for other companies as well as pushing forward my own projects. Together with Meruan we had lot’s of planning meetings, made proposals for the two finnish institutions that fund short film, and eventually also got meetings with them. We also got the finnish broadcasting channel YLE1 on board, they were actually the first ones we met and the first ones who said “YES!”

Things got complicated last fall, as it turned out that one of the two funding bodies did not appreciate our script. This meant we had to go back to file away at the budget and try to see if we could raise the budget from YLE, the Finnish Film Fund and by providing our own time as investment. Finally our efforts paid off, and we signed contracts with both funding bodies.

During all this time Meruan kept working on Huuhaa and the location and refining his idea of the film. He’d already invested lots and lots of his own time when we finally got the contracts, so most of our own investment has already been paid in.

Throughout the summer, our rigger Kustaa and modeller Aki were hard at work, starting to build both Huuhaa and his habitat. In August we had our kick-off meeting for the production, which I’ll cover in the next post, so stay tuned!